Cherry Blossom Blooming (Book One)
by grimrose
Summary: Haruno Sakura has resigned herself to a life of obscurity in the ninja forces, forever outshone by her two best friends. Then she gets put on a team with three of the biggest male personalities in Konoha and is thrown head-first into a series of front lines active duty missions. From here, it's either success or death. Does Sakura have what it takes? (An Alternate Sakura story.)
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Don't expect to hear from me a lot, but I did think "Alternate Sakura" required some sort of explanation. As the only girl on Naruto's fighting team and the main heroine, Sakura had incredible potential to be a great female character, and because of this her character in the series always disappointed me. The canonical Sakura is weak, annoying, underdeveloped, and constantly taken away from any important or meaningful roles.

So I set out to craft a story where the main character was a new Sakura. New Sakura has all the basic features of the old Sakura: bookish, with good chakra control, from a civilian family, friends with Yamanaka Ino, crush on Uchiha Sasuke, fiery yet not huge on meaningless fighting, a little shallow and judgmental, a little self conscious and self doubting, slow to realize she cares about people, etc. She's even still placed on team seven. But I took all those guidelines, and I tried to craft out of them a flawed, three dimensional, likable female character that I actually wanted to read and found interesting. In other words, same situation, different character and personality. And then I sat back to see what else would change if Sakura were actually a cool character.

Book One should end with the beginning of the Chuunin Exam.

* * *

><p><em>Cherry Blossom Blooming<em>

**Book One**

1.

I will always remember that last day of school. Naruto made it memorable. "Naruto" being one of the other students in my class. He was loud, obnoxious, awkward, and the butt of everyone's jokes. I think every school has a kid like that. Ours was Naruto. He made me embarrassed for him and uncomfortable around him in equal measure. Every time he spoke to me, I was worried he was making fun of me - that I was going to be one of his jokes or pranks. He had this foxish face and these narrow, lit blue eyes that I saw as slightly evil - they were usually plotting something. They hadn't yet been turned consideringly in my direction, but it was one of those inevitable things I dreaded somewhere in the back of my mind.

I had always privately considered myself easy to make fun of. I was a small, skinny twelve-year-old girl - flat butt, no boobs. Oh yeah. Puberty had been kind to me. My forehead was wide and Frankenstinian and it made my face look long. I was not exactly blessed with prettiness. Nor did I have a lot of wit and personality. I had a lot of _books. _But the wit and personality,_ that_ was reserved for my best friend, Ino, who also had a way bigger rack than I did, because the universe is patently unfair. Don't get me wrong, I loved Ino. She was my closest friend and had saved me from the much-hated thirteen-year-old epidemic of Being A Made-Fun-Of Loser With No Friends. (Naruto had caught that particular disease.) But I also envied her. Particularly because, well, you see...

Okay, so there was this boy.

Ha. "Oh. It's going to be one of _those _stories," I can hear you thinking.

Not quite.

There was a boy. He had dark hair and velvet eyes and pale skin. He was the best in the class, and he constantly had poise; he was dark and forbidding, with just that hint of wit and rebelliousness. He was basically perfect. For those who don't know or don't understand, evolution has pre-programmed women to go for men with:

good physical features

intelligence, often expressed as wit

and

poise, which indicates power

Guys were pre-programmed to try to get a lot of attractive girls in the sack. And girls were pre-programmed to be attracted to powerful men.

I _knew _that. Intellectually. But in another important way that my intellect had nothing to do with - on an instinctive level - I was still attracted to Uchiha Sasuke. It was one of those annoying little details of my life. Annoying, because I knew it made me normal to the point of boring. Practically _every _girl in our class liked Uchiha Sasuke. That included Ino.

I want you to picture a classroom right now. Focus on the girls. There are the three girls giggling in the back. There's the tomboy sitting, bored, close to the middle. There's the clever, witty rebel girl in black - that's Ino. There's the shy but pretty, dainty girl sitting close to the front, attentively taking in every lecture - that's my other friend, Hinata.

And then there's me. The skinny, ugly girl sitting in the corner, off to the side, unnoticeable next to the coolest girl around. With long, ratty hair, pink like my name, Sakura. And a gigantic book under her arm.

Ino had no idea I liked Sasuke, and there was a very good reason for that. It was because I knew that never, ever, ever, in a million years, did I have a chance with him. He was out of my stratosphere. He was the rock star up on the stage and I hadn't even gotten into the concert. Ino was practically _meant _for somebody like Sasuke. So I did what any good girlfriend would, and let her pursue him.

Because, him noticing me? Ha. You amusing, amusing person, you.

So that was me. I was unexceptional. I went to a ninja school in Konoha, one of the most elite Hidden Villages (or, ninja military bases) in the world, but I came from a civilian background and I had no real talent. I mean, sure, I was good at memorizing information, strategizing, and I had good chakra (or, magical power) control. But I had no unusual spells or techniques, no special family abilities. (Again, those were reserved for Hinata and Ino. Are you seeing a trend here?) I read lots of books and took copious amounts of notes and hoped in vain that it would one day prepare me for the real world.

But this story isn't about me. It's not about Ino, or Hinata. It's not even about Sasuke.

It's about Naruto.

So, back to the last day of classes, then. Our class's teacher, Iruka-sensei, was interrupted from his lecture by another teacher, also a Chuunin-ranked adult ninja in a leaf-green flak vest, running into the room and whispering something in his ear. A boy's elbow slipped off his desk and he sat up, awake again, with a start. I saw it out of the corner of my line of vision and it made me glance up as well, my pencil lifting uncertainly from the paper. I was just in time to see Iruka pale at the message he heard and then hurry from the room.

The rest of the class sat there, looking at each other wonderingly. It was the last day before the final graduation exam and the teacher had just walked out on us. What was going on? Should we leave? Naruto would have, but he hadn't appeared that day. Pity, he could have used it. He was one of those sitting the exam tomorrow. Each student was allowed three tries at passing the final exam into the ninja forces over the course of their final year - each time, the student was tested on one of the essential techniques for being a Genin-ranked ninja, chosen at random. Naruto had already failed twice. Tomorrow was his last shot. You'd think he'd have been there that day. How were some people so unfailingly confident in themselves?

Then again, maybe it wasn't that. Naruto was an orphan. Maybe he just... didn't have anyone to make him come.

After a few minutes, there were some sounds of shouting and struggling out in the hallway. Then the classroom door slammed open and Iruka appeared, dragging Naruto in by the ear. Naruto could be seen first. As usual, he was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit.

"Get off of me!" Naruto was snapping, pulling.

"NO! I can't believe you would do something like that! What would possess you to graffiti the Hokage Monument -?!"

Immediately, everyone in the class gasped, stood up, and hurried over to the window to look. There it was, in broad daylight. The hill with the proud carved stone visages of our village leaders on it, shooting up out of the center of the city, had been painted over in neon colors to resemble sickly women. I wasn't sure whether to be offended or impressed.

"Jesus, Naruto..." A reluctant grin stretched over Ino's face as the class broke out into murmurs and whispers.

"How did he even manage to _do _that?" I asked (the faces were pretty high up, in the center of the village, and they were under constant guard from ninja) before I saw Sasuke roll his eyes out of the corner of my eye. It was probably at Naruto and not at anything I'd said, but I still swallowed and ducked my head.

"SIT DOWN!" Iruka-sensei shouted, seemingly at the short end of his temper, and everyone quickly moved back to their seats, where they slouched down, feigning casualness, and tried to look inconspicuous. Iruka-sensei tied Naruto up in ropes, sat him down on the floor, and started lecturing him in front of the entire class. I think I'd have died. Naruto just sat there and refused even to look at the man lecturing him from above. His aura was one of utter contempt. He tried so hard to seem like he wasn't listening that I think he must have been.

I would have been trying to figure out what would have possessed someone trying so hard to be a ninja to dishonor their future commander so thoroughly on the last day before their final shot at a major exam. Why jinx yourself like that? But even I had given up on trying to understand Uzumaki Naruto ages ago.

"Naruto, you failed the last exam! You failed the exam before that! What could possibly have made you think what you pulled today was a good idea?!"

Apparently, though, Iruka hadn't.

"This is no time to be skipping class and playing stupid jokes!" Iruka continued furiously.

I wasn't sure what he expected, but what actually happened is that Naruto continued looking away with a stubborn, determined kind of childishness.

In revenge, fuming, Iruka turned to the class and snapped, "We're doing a review of the Henge transformation ninjutsu spell. Everybody line up. _Now_."

Inuzuka Kiba raised his hand. "What about those who have already passed?" It was a good question. I had already passed.

"_Especially _those who have already passed!" Spit was actually flying from our teacher's mouth.

I sighed. "Really, Naruto?" I muttered. And, amidst all the complaining, I stood up to go take my spot in line before the teacher.

I stood between Ino and Hinata - safe bet, right? Ino was the barrier between me and Naruto, who was ahead of me in line (and between me and Sasuke, who was ahead of Naruto), and Hinata was the barrier between me and the rest of the unwashed masses. Oh, sorry, I mean, my classmates.

I sometimes have delusions of grandeur. No big deal, right?

So Sasuke came up first. He didn't even say anything, he just did the spell. I didn't even know that was possible - I kind of always assumed everyone had to shout out the name of their spell, because that was what everyone did. But, nope, not Sasuke. He was just _silent._

_I should seriously look into that. Ninja are supposed to be silent._

Then Naruto came up next. He shouted the name of the technique _very loudly_, and instead of transforming into a copy of Iruka-sensei, like Sasuke had, he transformed into a copy of a naked woman who made a pass at the teacher. Hundreds of disbelieving questions went through my mind:

_Why did I ever even briefly consider the possibility of Naruto being a feminist?_

_Is he gay?_

_Is there something he's not telling us?_

_No, seriously, how is he that comfortable acting like a woman?_

_And, most importantly, __**why is Iruka ogling Naruto's breasts?**_

Let me tell you, I thought, I was going to be so prepared for field work. Nothing in my world was as disturbing as Uzumaki Naruto.

But I wasn't really the kind of person who said that sort of thing in front of others, so I stayed quiet. I did what I always did when lectures got really boring, or when I got embarrassed for the idiocy of the people around me. I thought of my latest book. I read romance - like, as in, lots of romance. Fantasy romance. The kinds of books where making out with hot guys and unicorns go hand in hand. Do books like that really exist? Yes. And I read them. Don't tell anyone.

So there I was, in my head, all making out with a cute guy, and then I heard Hinata give a gasp of dismay and I inadvertently started to pay attention to my surroundings again.

_Damn._

_Oh, it's just Iruka locking Naruto in the supply closet again._

_Is that legal?_

I looked over at Hinata, who seemed very upset at the object of her affections being locked away till the end of the school day. Object of her affections? Oh yeah. If Sasuke had a little sticker that said _Belongs to Ino _stamped across his forehead in my mind, Naruto had an equal little sticker that said _Belongs to Hinata. _(And me? I would just be alone forever. No big deal.) The crush Hinata had on Naruto, I had also given up on understanding. It was one of those weird freak of nature things that occasionally happens, like lightning striking the same spot twice.

"Hinata, he just transformed into a naked girl. You cannot tell me you still have a crush on him," I said flatly.

Hinata looked down and fiddled with her fingers. "He just acts out to get attention," she said in a soft voice, pained. "He feels ignored by everybody. That's why he does the things he does."

I considered this. "I'll take your word on that," I said at last, and Ino laughed.

"That's _my _crush over _there_." She pointed at Sasuke, leaning coolly off to the side. When I looked his way, he glanced in my direction and I immediately looked down again, blushing furiously and cursing myself.

No matter how obvious a girl seems, always remember one thing: If she really has a crush on you, she's probably trying to hide it. If she's not, she just wants sex.

Sex.

_Don't go there, head. Just don't go there._

I did look up once more, unafraid of betraying my thoughts for a split second, when I stepped forward from the line and called out my name, "Haruno Sakura," and did the Henge perfectly, becoming Iruka to a T. I did glance over - just once - at Sasuke.

Of course, he wasn't looking at me.

I looked away again.

* * *

><p>Class ended for the day and, since I had already passed the final exam, I went home to a peaceful and stress-free dinner with my parents. I dreamed that night in my bed, maybe appropriately, of my own graduation test.<p>

_I walked into the exam room and immediately paused, frowning. The door across the room was made of water. At first, I thought it was my vision playing tricks on me, but then I walked toward it and I could still see the mirage of silvery blue playing before my eyes -_

_Mirage._

_I did read things besides fantasy romance, and I'd read once that out in the desert with no water, a person can walk for so long that eventually they can see a mirage of water appear before them, an illusion of life where none actually is. They walk forever, thinking they're heading toward an oasis, but they never are._

_It was a Genjutsu - an illusion spell._

_I closed my eyes, made the hand seal, and dispersed chakra energy out into the air around me. When I opened my eyes, I was just in an ordinary exam room, with Iruka and the examiner Mizuki sitting behind a table that cut it in half. Sitting on the table before them were long, gleaming rows of new hitai-ate, ninja marker bands with the Konoha village symbol on them._

"_... You know, Sakura," Iruka said quietly after a while, "you doubt yourself, but inside you really are a clever person. That's the fastest I've ever seen anyone see the Genjutsu."_

"_... Thank you, Iruka-sensei," I said uncertainly after a moment, because I didn't know what he meant. I doubted myself? I was an unexceptional person destined to an unexceptional life. I knew that._

_Iruka looked me searchingly in the eyes for a moment, and then he smiled. "Come on," he said. "Come up and get your hitai-ate."_

_Beaming, happiness filling me despite an inner warning that it wasn't to last, I walked forward to receive my ninja marker. I ran outside afterward, to the Ninja Academy's front courtyard, through the crowds of graduated people, to Ino and Hinata. "I passed!" I cried, holding up the band, uncharacteristically excited, and then my Dad, who had been waiting for me with my mother, charged forward and swept me up into his huge arms. I laughed, freely._

I awoke staring at my bedroom ceiling. I rolled over and saw my alarm clock. _7 AM._

The ones who had passed would have passed. From this day forth, I was a ninja.

* * *

><p>The Hokage Monument was clean by the time I was scheduled to take my ninja registration picture on the viewing platform in front of it. I wasn't sure who had cleaned it. Maybe they forced Naruto to.<p>

Either way, that meant there was nothing to blame when my photo turned out awful.

I tried to give a good smile, head tilted upward, strong stance. Pretty, but kickass. That was what I was going for. But when the photographer showed me the printed picture afterward, I just looked constipated. Oh well. Sakura the Constipated. That would be my name out in the field.

_Name: Haruno Sakura_

_Ninja Registration Serial Number: 012601_

_Ninja Academy Graduation Age: 12_

_Ninja Academy Instructor: Umino Iruka_

_Birthday: March 28th (Aries)_

_Height: 4'10''_

_Weight: 88 lbs_

_Diet: None_

_Blood Type: O_

_Personality -_

_Teacher Assessment: fiery, smart, self doubting _

_Own Assessment: introverted, well read_

_Favorite Food: Red bean soup_

_Least Favorite Food: Spicy food_

_Desired Opponent: Serial Rapist_

_Favorite phrase: "Every flower blooms differently"_

_Hobby: Reading, crossword and sudoku puzzles_

I looked up from my registration form with its Constipation Picture, finished writing, the neat little scribbles making the page below the photo look almost completely black. I was waiting outside a spare Academy classroom, swinging my legs lightly below the wooden waiting hall bench. I was nervous, and I couldn't help but turn my eyes toward the door in front of me. The Hokage himself was there in that next room, and I would be meeting with him as soon as the previous new ninja was finished. He would be assessing the most personal document I would ever be giving to the Konoha Village Ninja Archives. I had never met the commander before.

Suddenly, so suddenly I jumped, the door opened and a boy in a turtleneck with messy dark hair came out. He looked alright. He was physically unharmed, emotionally stable. I wasn't sure what else I'd expected. I vaguely recognized him from my class, but I couldn't remember his name. I tried raising my eyebrows in his direction, looking for some sort of sign as to how it had gone, but apparently I was bad at giving off telepathic signals because he just gave me a friendly sort of acknowledging smile and walked off. There went my promising future career as a failed-ninja-psychic.

Taking a deep breath, I stood and walked into the next room, clutching my form. I had seen him make speeches, but there he was in the flesh: the Hokage. I knew about him; I'd memorized everything about him in school, dutifully, as was required. He was known as the Professor, and he had one of the widest-ranging and most encyclopedic knowledges of ninjutsu spells in the world. His three best students had gone on to be the famous, infamous Sannin trio. He had a jonin-ranking son who had spent some time guarding the Daimyo up in the capital of our Fire Country, and a daughter who had died, leaving a son behind whom the Hokage raised in name, but who actually had a whole host of servants taking care of him in the Hokage's Mansion.

The man in life was smaller than I'd expected, his traditional red and white robes engulfing him. He was very tiny and thin, wrinkled and spotted with age, his nose large and with crow's feet around his brown eyes. He certainly didn't look like one of the most powerful ninja in the world. Could looks be deceiving? Maybe. We were ninja, after all.

I put the registration form on the table for his perusal and sat down on the other side of the table, folding my hands tightly together in my lap. I watched as he took up the form silently, his eyes scanning down the page.

After a few moments, he spoke. "Serial rapist?" He raised an eyebrow as he looked up at me.

I blushed, already regretting putting_ that _down. "You know," I said feebly, "because I'd kill him."

"Ah. Well, don't let me stand in the way of _that,_" he replied dryly, and returned to scanning the page. "... You really should learn to sell yourself, you know," he added in a normal, almost grandfatherly tone of voice.

I blinked, sitting up straighter. "E-Excuse me?"

He looked up and explained, "This form is going to be seen by everyone, in every Hidden Village, in every Bingo Book, everywhere. And yet your teacher speaks more highly of your 'ninja personality' than you do."

"Do you want to me to redo it?" I asked, becoming more nervous as he spoke.

He seemed vaguely amused. "No," he said, "but keep that in mind for the future."

He reached down and stamped the form. SEEN.

"Report to your old Academy classroom at 0800 tomorrow morning for your first ninja assignment," he said, bored, looking away as he put the form in a pile, his eyes not even on me. Clearly, I hadn't left much of an impression. "Next."

* * *

><p>It was the morning of my first assignment as a ninja, and I was trying to make myself look halfway decent up in my bedroom. I couldn't decide if I wanted to look pretty or if I wanted to look ninja-like, and there was half of my problem.<p>

My room was full of shelves. I don't know what it is about bookish people, but they usually really like movies and music, and I was no exception. There was one bookshelf full of books and crossword puzzles, a separate one for movies, and another for music. My music player was next to my bed and my television was diagonally across the room from my bed. I had a collage of photographs from my childhood hanging above my bed, which was messier than it probably should have been - or at least, that's what my Mom would have said. The blankets were crimson, because for some reason I'd always had an affinity with the color red, and my cat had his own bed but usually slept on a corner of mine. Scattered throughout the room were workout materials, because you didn't get to be a ninja by sitting around and eating ice cream all the time - it would be awesome if that was how it worked, but it doesn't - and hung on my closet door was a cloak with an edge of flames that said Fighting Spirit on the back in big, bold letters. I'd thought about wearing it to the explanatory meeting, but decided that would be cheesy and embarrassing.

I did not have a tall standing mirror, just a little one over my dresser. I regretted that on this particular morning. I was trying to assess how appropriately ninja I looked, but I could only see the first half of myself: the top of my crimson kunoichi dress, which was a dark deep red that looked brown from a distance, and my hair, which was as usual long and uncooperative. I had threaded my hitai-ate through it like a hair ribbon - cutesy but professional; you could still see the Konoha symbol - but after a few minutes of fiddling in the mirror, I made a face at myself and with an irritated noise I ripped the hitai-ate from my hair.

When I was little, my hair had been short, chin-length. I would never admit it, but the only reason I'd grown out my hair was because I'd heard Uchiha Sasuke liked girls with long hair. And even though I had no idea how someone would be able to figure out something like that, and even though it was probably just a stupid rumor, and even though I knew Uchiha Sasuke would never like someone like me, I'd grown out my hair anyway. The only problem was that my hair just did _not _look good long. And it was inappropriate for the field. What if someone made a grab for my long hair? What if it got in my face while I was running or fighting?

At last, I decided grimly to sacrifice fashion for utility; I pulled my hair up into a messy bun and wound the hitai-ate tightly around it to hold it in place, like a scrunchy. I kept my bangs away from my forehead, remembering Ino's advice that hiding something only made people want to pick on you for it. I did _not_ look good, but for some reason, I felt better that way. Like with the way I'd foregone a brighter red kunoichi dress for one that more resembled a blending in with dirt, I felt safer as a plain girl. Men in the field, I remembered, were less likely to pick on a plain girl.

I did not envy lovely, showy kunoichi. I had when I was younger. Teaching at the Academy had quickly forced _that_ delusionout of my head.

As usual, I tied the equipment and weapons pouch in place at my leg, and then I stood there looking down at my own appearance. I looked up - there was my face. This was who I was now. A ninja. Despite myself, I felt a thrill of excitement and dread. I'd stayed up late last night, elated and terrified at the same time, my head full of thoughts. I felt scattered, strained, anticipatory, like before a taijutsu hand to hand spar at the Academy.

"Sakura! Shouldn't you be leaving by now?" I heard my mother call to me from the bottom of the stairs, where she'd been making breakfast.

I checked the alarm clock. "Sh -!" I stopped myself just in time. Anytime anyone in our house swore, they had to pinch themselves. Self-harm was _not _how I wanted to start my career in the forces. "Coming, Mom!" I called back, harried and irritated - though not at her - and then I hurried down the stairs into the kitchen. I felt naked without my bookbag with me. The Hokage hadn't told me to bring any materials for my first assignment.

"Gotta go!" I grabbed some breakfast and ingloriously stuffed it in my face on the way out the door.

"Sakura!" my mother called after me in exasperation. "You always eat on the run! Why must you always be so late?!"

"It's not like I try to be!" I heard my father chuckle from behind his newspaper as I opened the front door of our house and went down the steps to the outside street.

I lived in a _house_, Ino lived in a _compound _attached to a privately owned street-level _shop_. This was the difference between our families, one civilian and the other a famous ninja clan. But we lived just down the street from each other. When I was leaving my house, Ino was just leaving hers, and so we fell into step beside each other. Two blocks down, we picked up Hinata from her own clan compound, and she fell into step beside us. Us girls, we stuck together.

"What are you going to do after this, Sakura? Without us around to help you anymore?" Ino grinned, but she was only half-teasing. "I have my family's ninjutsu spells and Hinata has her family's special style of taijutsu fighting, their special chakra-enhanced eyes... What about you? All you have are the basics you learned at the Academy."

"I'll find a way to get by," I said simply, more confidently than I felt.

"We're always around for you if you need it, you know," said Hinata, looking over at me in concern. (Hinata had an older sister complex, which was why she always lost in fights to her younger sister. Their father, despite all his decades in the forces, did not seem to have picked up on this little fact and appeared to be under the impression that Hinata was weak. Hinata practiced far too often to be weak. And her hits hurt really bad. I would know.)

"I won't need help." I toughened my face from letting it show any emotion. Something about spending the rest of my life relying on my friends to help me fight filled me with an unpleasant emotion. I wasn't sure how to define it, but I didn't like it. "I'll make my own way as a ninja."

For some unaccountable reason, my friends smiled.

* * *

><p>We made it to the classroom and Ino's eyes were like a hawk's; she immediately ran toward an empty seat, and I was halfway behind her, dragging Hinata behind <em>me<em>, before I stopped and realized that the seat was between Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto. Both of them were among those waiting who had passed. One was expected, the other not so much. I halted in place with a jolt, Hinata nearly ran into me, and then Ino just _had _to cry out, "Can I sit with you, Sasuke-kun?!" And as Hinata and I gasped, shutting up completely, both boys' eyes turned in our direction: Sasuke's, and Naruto's.

Sasuke just sat there and stared at us - it was impossible to tell what he was thinking, but he seemed caught off guard - while Naruto stood up, smiling, and as Hinata stiffened up involuntarily, he ran over to... _me?_

"Hi, Sakura-chan!" He grinned, and he seemed completely genuine. Sakura_-chan? _The suffix was affectionate, only used for pretty girls and small children.

"Don't make fun of me, Naruto." My eyes narrowed threateningly. As surprise passed across Naruto's face, I refused to blush. I tried to emanate an "I _will _hit you" aura into the air around me.

Maybe it worked, because he seemed nervous. "What are you talking about, Sakura-chan? I was just saying good morning... No jokes at all! Really!" He held up his hands, eyes widened convincingly. I still wasn't sure if I believed him.

"... Good morning," I said at last, stiffly. He beamed again, widely, brightening up. There was something about Naruto. He expressed emotion pretty much everywhere. It really didn't make for a very stealthy ninja.

"Great! So... do you wanna sit with me?" He leaned forward winningly, eyeing me sideways.

_Me? _"Don't you want to sit with Hinata?" I held the poor, embarrassed girl up before me for his appraisal. "She's my best friend and she's really nice!"

"Uh..." Naruto blinked, nonplussed. "Hey, Quiet Girl." Then he frowned and looked at me again. "Sakura-chan, I was really hoping to sit with you! Why don't we just...?" And then he turned around and swore like I wasn't supposed to, sort of loudly.

A bunch of girls, including Ino, had taken over his seat and were now arguing over the seat next to Uchiha Sasuke. Sasuke was physically leaning away from them, looking a little weirded out. They were already giving me a headache.

"Let's go sit somewhere else," I muttered to Hinata, sort of embarrassed on behalf of the entirely shameless Ino, and as we turned away we heard Naruto speak.

"Good idea!" he said, and he hurried after us to sit as the third at _our _table. "What?" he said, looking in my direction, as I sat down. Apparently, I'd been giving him a weird look. "I wanna sit with the sane girls!" He grinned.

I rolled my eyes, but was more amused than I should have been. "Right, because you're _so _sane yourself."

"Exactly."

"Yeah."

"Glad we agree."

"So am I - Look. You want to tell us what you're really doing here?" I gave him a challenging sort of look.

He looked around and then leaned closer. "Yeah," he said, cupping a hand to his mouth. "I'm secretly a spy for men everywhere. We want to know why you're the only two women on earth _who don't like Uchiha Sasuke_."

"Ah, screw you! I thought you said no jokes!"

Naruto leaned back, laughing shamelessly.

Hinata was looking between us with huge, scared deer eyes.

"And how do you know I don't like Uchiha Sasuke?" I added before I could stop myself.

"Ugh." He gave a shudder. "You don't if you have any taste. I prefer to be optimistic and think you _do_ have taste."

"Just because he's better than you in _every _subject..."

"No." He pointed at me decisively. "You know what? Everyone thinks that. And that's totally not it. He has this empty, zoned out stare. It's slightly horrific. We sat next to each other for ten minutes and the guy didn't say a goddamn word. And I _spoke _to him. I swear to God, he has the personality of a tree stump."

Slightly discomfited, I nevertheless defended my crush, thrusting my chin upward. "Well, maybe he's just _shy."_

Naruto actually snorted and started laughing behind his hand - a genuine laugh this time, not just an obnoxious one. "Yeah, that's it," he said. "Sasuke's just _shy."_

I blushed despite myself. "Oh, shut up." I looked away, punching him playfully in the arm. "Stop being mean or you don't get to sit with us."

"I'm not being mean -!" He feigned earnestness again.

We continued messing around with each other till Iruka came in (a little injured for some reason) calling the class to order. I wondered at myself. Talking to Naruto was more painless than I thought it would be. Judging from her expression, Hinata wondered at me too.

("I wonder why Iruka's all banged up? Did he get in a fight?" I asked as the man walked in to give us our assignments.

I didn't entirely miss the way Naruto's blue eyes slid carefully away.)

* * *

><p>"Starting today, you are all official ninja. But you start out at the lowest rank: Genin. From here, things get hard. You thought the Academy was hard? This gets harder - especially if you hope to advance up the ranks to Chuunin or Jonin."<p>

Iruka's final speech to us was very inspirational.

"You will be put in groups of three, and from there, each group will accomplish missions under a Jonin-ranking instructor -" I raised my hand. Iruka almost smiled. "Yes, Sakura?"

"Why are we put under a Jonin instructor? Why not a Chuunin, like at the Academy?" The idea of putting my meager skills before one of the legendary Jonin of Konoha filled me with trepidation.

"There are several reasons," Iruka replied. "It is thought a Jonin would be able to offer you more training in the field, and would be better able to protect three young people should a mission go south. It's also thought that it might be good if the highest ranking ninja of Konoha kept in contact with the lowest ranking - to foster better awareness and relations, things like that."

"So it's political?" I asked.

"It's strategic," he answered evasively.

It was political.

That was when Sasuke raised his hand - a rarity. Sasuke had a silent kind of reserve. "Why three people?" he asked, and for some reason he was frowning. "Why not a one-on-one mentor relationship with the Jonin?"

"A few reasons: we don't have those kinds of resources." Iruka was nothing if not honest. "And we try to put students in teams of three to better keep a balance between the team members."

"So you pair the worst students with the best?" Sasuke asked, raising an eyebrow. He seemed unimpressed, displeased.

"Well - try not to think of it so much in those terms." Iruka winced. "And besides," he added, "there are invaluable skills and connections to be built up by learning to work together." Whatever that meant. Judging from my classmates' puzzled expressions, they didn't understand either.

Now, of course, what he was trying to tell us is clear. But we were only twelve years old.

Ino raised her hand. "Do we get to choose who's on our teams?" She was smiling and eyeing Sasuke out of the corner of her eye. He seemed to be trying very hard not to meet her eye.

"Your teams have been pre-assigned," said Iruka, and it was impossible to read what he was thinking.

"By you?" Kiba asked.

"By the Hokage," Iruka replied.

I frowned and raised my hand. "But that's not fair! He doesn't know us!" There was some grumbling from the classroom around me.

"He knows _me_," I heard Naruto mutter.

"Getting in so much trouble you meet the Hokage doesn't count," I hissed back at him under my breath.

"Relax, he knows us," said Nara Shikamaru in a perfectly normal tone of voice - to everyone's surprise, because he was usually the first to complain in class. "Iruka's probably been feeding him information about us the whole time. Right?" Iruka cleared his throat and looked away, uncomfortable. Shikamaru sat back in grim satisfaction. "See?"

"Oh, no," Hinata murmured, eyes wide.

"What?" I turned to her in concern.

"He's been telling the Hokage how awful I am..." She crossed her arms before herself and sank down lower in her seat, looking around herself self consciously. Hinata had some self esteem issues.

"Don't say that! You do great!" I turned to her in concern, but she could barely hear me over the shouting of our classmates around us. Some people weren't too happy about being reported on.

"Quiet! Until the end of the day, I'm still your teacher!" Iruka snapped then, losing his calm, some of the old fire flaring in his eyes. The grumbles quieted into silence. Iruka took a deep breath, and straightened, holding a piece of paper before him. "I will now announce the teams."

* * *

><p><em>It won't be that bad. It won't be that bad. It won't be that bad...<em>

"Team Seven: Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke."

_Holy. Shit._

Maybe Sasuke would turn out like Naruto, not as scary as I'd imagined? Yeah. Fat chance of that.

* * *

><p>"Team Eight: Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino."<p>

I turned to Hinata and winced. _Sorry, _I mouthed. Not only was she not on a team with Naruto, she was on a team with the most extroverted boy around _besides _Naruto and a boy who had been collectively termed as "creepy bug kid."

* * *

><p>"Team Ten: Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji."<p>

And then I had to wince and mouth, _Sorry, _to Ino. Ino was on a team with the boy who hated school and never tried at anything, and the boy who spent all his time eating.

My friends were both shooting me death glares.

_And... both my friends hate me. Great._

To top it all off, the announced name of my Jonin instructor hadn't even been female. That piece of luck was reserved for Hinata.

* * *

><p>No sooner had Iruka finished his announcements than Naruto stood up and pointed furiously at Sasuke. "Iruka-sensei! Why is a great student like me on a team with someone like <em>him<em>?!"

Immediately, springing into action, I leaped out of my chair and pushed Naruto back down by the head. "Sorry, sir, he's mentally deficient. I'll explain it to him." There was some snickering. But I'd already figured it out. And no _way _was Iruka _explaining _it to all the other Genin.

Iruka looked surprised, but not displeased. He nodded in amusement. "Please do."

I sat back down with a big smile, and then turned quickly to Naruto and got deadly serious, getting right up in his face. "Listen," I said under my breath, as he was sitting there gaping at me, "you don't have to like Sasuke. You don't even have to agree that he's a good ninja. All you have to understand is that in the eyes of the authority, Sasuke is what everyone else should aspire to. He is the _elite. _Remember what Iruka said about balancing? We were placed on a team with him because," I swallowed, "because we're weak," I finished softly. "You're the one who's always skipping class and failing tests, who never gets anything right. And I'm the one with nothing going for me."

Naruto immediately frowned. "But -!"

"I know. It _sucks. _But we can change that," I added on a sudden inspiration. "All we have to do is stick together and try to learn as much as possible from Sasuke and our instructor. They put us with them so they could up our power levels. That way, when we get back out of the team again, we'll be much better off than when we entered it.

"You don't have to like Sasuke. You just have to learn from him."

Naruto had slowly deflated, looking at me thoughtfully. "... Beat him at his own game kind of thing," he surmised at last. Then he grinned, his most evil and mischievous grin, the kind that filled his whole face, the kind I had always feared. "Yeah," he said. "I can do that."

I had never paid much attention to Uchiha Sasuke's techniques before. Maybe that sounds kind of strange, but I'd always been too focused on _him, _what he'd just done or said, or the awe of the finished result of all his practice during a spar maybe. So this would be a new thing for me. But I already had one thing to add to the list:

_Stuff I need to learn:_

_silent spells_

* * *

><p>Iruka announced that we'd be meeting with our Jonin instructors in the same classroom later that afternoon, but before that we had a free lunch. We could walk wherever or do whatever we wanted for one hour.<p>

Walking outside to the Academy front courtyard afterward, I immediately went to find my friends. "I'm sorry, you guys," I said immediately, as Ino and Hinata turned toward me, "I didn't mean to -"

"Oh, it's fine." Ino waved a hand breezily.

I paused. "... Really?" That seemed too easy.

But then Ino gave a grin not unlike Naruto's (oh, if I'd told her that) and said, "No, see, I've got a plan. Sakura, you _have _to go make friends with those two boys. So you can introduce _us _to them." She turned to a surprised Hinata with growing excitement. "Don't you see? This is great! They could have been placed on a team with people we don't know and they'd have been lost to us forever!"

Then Hinata turned to me and smiled shyly. "It looked like you had a leg up with befriending Naruto already," she said, and she didn't even mean anything bad by it. She was genuinely happy for me. Hinata really was too nice.

"Go, girl!" Ino turned me around and shoved me in that general direction. "You've got a mission!"

So now I had two missions I couldn't talk about: one was to learn from Sasuke. The other was to befriend Sasuke and Naruto.

_I can do this, _I told myself feebly. _Really, I can. _

But soon enough, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and my brain began working. I could get this done, as long as I didn't think too hard about how scary it would be. Learning from Sasuke meant staying close to him, so I could combine the two objectives, for now, into one. I had to stay close to my teammates today. That meant spending this lunch with them. I had the perfect pretense: it looked like we'd be working together for the foreseeable future.

_So, Step One: Find Sasuke and Naruto._

Naruto, predictably, proved the easier of the two.

"Sakura-chan!" I whirled around to find him right behind me. How did he _do _that? "Let's eat together since we're in the same group now!"

I ignored my own inner trepidation and said, in what I attempted to be a reasonable tone, "Fine. But we have to find Sasuke, too. Do you have any idea where he went?"

Naruto scowled. "I don't see why we have to find _him. _Can't it just be the two of us?" He was almost whining.

His bizarre fascination with me aside, I replied firmly, "No. We're a team now. Remember what I said?"

"I don't see what I'd learn from Sasuke by eating lunch with him!"

"Naruto! We're going to be performing missions together! You don't think getting to know him a little might be of value?"

Naruto's face worked furiously for a long moment. I could see every instinct inside him told him not to eat lunch with someone like Uchiha Sasuke. "... Okay," he said begrudgingly at last. "Fine. But I don't see Sasuke around anywhere, do you? Clearly, _he _isn't taking the time to try to befriend _us. _Big surprise," Naruto added in a mutter out of the corner of his mouth.

I winced and tried to be the optimistic one. If I was blinded by my own admiration, I reasoned, Naruto was probably equally blinded by his own dislike. "I'm sure he'll be fine with eating lunch with us if we just ask him. Let's start looking around campus..."

And so we set off around the perimeter, me determinedly, Naruto reluctantly. We passed by several other teams eating lunch together, but no Sasuke. At last, Naruto blurted out all at once, "Sakura-chan, can I ask you a question?"

I sighed. "Sure, Naruto, what is it?"

"What do you really think of me?"

I laughed slightly and said, "I think you're obnoxious," but I immediately knew from his stop and silence that I'd misjudged the situation. I paused and turned around to find him looking into my face searchingly.

"Really?" he asked, and all of a sudden I'd come upon an entirely different Naruto - a self conscious one.

"W-well," I sputtered. I'd thought he was _kidding. _"Naruto, I..." I considered how to put this. "I think you're really funny, Naruto," I said at last, carefully, "and... a little different. And you should use your powers for good instead of evil."

For some reason, his eyes widened infinitesimally. "What do you mean?" he asked at last.

"I mean that humor is a powerful thing," I replied. "It's not every day people come across someone like you, Naruto." And wasn't that the truth? "You have the power to change people's minds about stuff. So... you have to be careful not to use that to make fun of or hurt others."

"I'd never do that!" Naruto said immediately, and for a minute I almost believed him. "So... I have power, huh?" He puffed up a little, seeming to like the idea.

"Yeah... I guess you do. I'd never really thought of it like that before." Before I could start second-guessing all my own assumptions, I shook my head and said, "Look... let's just get back to finding Sasuke, okay?"

We weren't having any luck. Sasuke didn't seem to be _anywhere. _I'd been about to finally just give up, but Naruto suddenly had an idea. "Why don't we try a high place? We'll be able to see more that way."

He had moved to jump up to the nearest roof, when I paused and pulled him back by the arm. Now _I'd_ had an idea. "Isn't there a water tower facing the spare empty classrooms on the other side of the building?"

Naruto looked at me curiously. "Yeah..."

I smiled in triumph. "Where better to look for him than in an abandoned place?"

We jumped up, ninja-like and silent, to the nearest tree branch and then to the nearest roof top. We crossed over till we were perched on top of the water tower. We looked around, scanning for a moment, and then... There he was!

"He's there!" I cried, pointing, and just as I'd figured, there he was eating lunch in an empty classroom alone. Hordes of admiring people always so surrounded Sasuke that I'd never really processed him as someone who maybe just... didn't like company. "Let's go down there," I said, determined to get to know him, for real this time, and I had just moved to jump down when Naruto grabbed my arm.

I looked up at him, and he was grinning, an entirely dangerous look that I wasn't sure I was a fan of. "What is it?" I asked in impending dread.

"We've spent all lunch period looking for him," said Naruto. "Let's play a prank."

"We're not playing a prank on Sasuke," I said immediately.

"Come on, Sakura-chan. It'll be _fun. _Where's your sense of adventure? I'll tell you what: I'll pretend to sneak up on him and attack him. He'll beat me -"

"Because he's better at taijutsu than you are," I interrupted, nodding in agreement.

Naruto winced. "A minor technicality. But anyway, he'll subdue me, and then I'll do the spell to replace myself with something outside, and a bunch of copies of me will burst in through the window behind him and attack him when he's not expecting it!" Naruto put a fist in hand in premature triumph. "It'll be great!"

"You can't even create copies of yourself, Naruto," I reminded him, rolling my eyes. "Every time Iruka tested us on that spell, you failed. I'm not even sure I'd feel safe entrusting something like that to you."

"But, but I learned how to do the Kage Bunshin, the shadow version of cloning spells, just a few days ago!"

"Liar!"

"I am not a liar and I'll prove it to you -!"

"How did you learn it?"

"As long as you don't ask me that part!"

He winced again as I stared at him.

"... So, if I don't ask, you'll genuinely show me the Kage Bunshin technique?" I said at last. It was a somewhat famous spell, forbidden from mass use because of its enormous power. Most cloning spells only created illusory after images or masses of some element which could be defeated easily. But Kage Bunshin, shadow clones, were actual physical copies of the person, with all their power and abilities. There were probably _Jounin _out there who couldn't do the Kage Bunshin ninjutsu spell.

"Yes!"

"And how to do it?"

He paused, gaping at me. "You want to learn it? I'm not sure if you have enough chakra energy... I mean, you have great control, but..."

I was a little disappointed. "Who wouldn't want to learn it? It sounds useful." I tossed my hair and crossed my arms. "And by the way, where do I fit into your great plans, if I might ask?"

"Well..."

"I have a better idea." I stood and announced, "I want to try something."

Naruto looked up at me curiously as I closed my eyes and concentrated. I made a hand seal for a simple genjutsu, one we'd been taught the beginnings of at the Academy; genjutsu required fine chakra control and Naruto had always been hopeless at it. But I didn't say anything. I didn't speak. Instead I let the illusion weave itself around us...

"Hey!" I heard Naruto suddenly shout. "We're gone! No one can see us!"

I smiled slightly and opened my eyes; the invisibility genjutsu faded away. I'd done it without speaking.

"Okay, here's what we'll do." I turned to him. "Show me your Kage Bunshin."

He bounced to his feet and announced, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" And there, easily, appeared one solid copy on either side of him.

I had a thought. "Naruto," I said curiously, "how much chakra do you have?"

"I dunno." Naruto shrugged and simplified, "A lot."

"You must, to be able to do a technique like that... So you have a lot of chakra, and I have great chakra control. This should work. It'll just be a simple joke. You'll come at the classroom from the window on the outside, and I'll come from the hallway on the inside. I'll weave the genjutsu so he can't see either of us - silently, so he doesn't hear it. Then I'll step out from the doorway and call his name. He'll turn around, but he won't see me. Then you'll come up behind him, silently, like you do, and -

"I'll jump him with my Kage Bunshin!" Naruto said, catching on.

"But don't hurt him," I frowned. "The goal is just to surprise him. It'll be like a joke. He'll laugh. And then I'll reveal us and we'll go, 'Surprise! We found you!' Like that, okay?"

"What if we lift him off his feet and you slide across the floor to be right there in front of his face?"

"That works!"

"It'll be like a surprise party! You know," Naruto said cannily, then. "He won't like it."

"Oh, he can't be that stuck up," I dismissed. "He'll be impressed. We'll prove to him we're worthy teammates!" I smiled, liking the idea.

Naruto didn't say anything, but he didn't seem to believe me.

"You know, Naruto," I said then, "you're actually pretty good at this whole strategy thing."

"I am?" He was ridiculously surprised. "I always just thought I was kinda dumb."

_So did I. _"If you approach stuff in the field like a gigantic prank with a goal, that could be really useful," I said. I hadn't counted on having a fellow strategist, except maybe from Sasuke.

Naruto looked thoughtful. "Huh..."

"By the way," I added, "I've been wondering... How did you graffiti the Hokage Monument without anyone finding out till you were finished?"

"I started early in the morning... The only reason you guys saw me as late as you did is because there was this big chase afterward. I'm not a bad runner. And, you know, ninja equipment. That kind of thing. So anyway, I started early in the morning. I went up to the viewing platform on top of the heads, and then snuck through the window and down to hang off by the side of the cliff while the guard detail around the viewing platform was being changed. I used ninja wire for string and a kunai knife as a tether to hold myself up by my belt loop. And because it was so early, no one down below saw me painting until I was nearly done. The guards up above couldn't see me hanging there below the cliff, and they didn't think to look.

"It's funny, what people won't notice if they're not looking for it."

No kidding. Until a few days ago, I'd been under the impression Uzumaki Naruto was an idiot.

* * *

><p>I was nervous as I walked down the empty Academy hall, silent and invisible. I liked the idea of proving myself to Sasuke, but dreaded failing, and was unsure how I felt about working so closely with Naruto. Still, I couldn't concentrate on this too much. It was hard, keeping a genjutsu over a wide enough area to cover Naruto as well. Naruto's invisibility was a must, what-with the obnoxious orange he always chose to wear.<p>

I thought of asking him about that, too, the next time I had a chance. Maybe he just liked orange, the way I'd always liked red. I hadn't been aware of how curious I and everyone else was about Naruto until I really started talking to him.

And then I was at the right door. My stomach fluttering, I stepped slowly into the doorway... and Sasuke didn't see me. There he was, eating, and it was interesting just watching him when he thought no one was looking. He seemed so much more... comfortable, that way. An unseen tension had been lifted from his shoulders, and his expression was relaxed.

My chakra was woven so tightly around Naruto, I _felt _it when he stepped slowly onto the window ledge on Sasuke's other side. I knew immediately it was him. The other Kage Bunshin, lying in wait below the window, did not need to be hidden and so I couldn't feel them.

It all happened at once. This, I was to learn, is how it always is.

"Sasuke," I called softly, swallowing before I said the name, quieter than I'd meant to. His head shot up and he whirled around, looked intently right at me - and was uncomprehending. He couldn't see me. Then, as his eyes widened in angry panic, he was jerked upward into the air by invisible hands, and I knew immediately from Sasuke's expression that Naruto had been right and I was very, very wrong.

I ran forward, not to surprise Sasuke anymore, but to wrest him from Naruto's grip. I was so stupid; perhaps Naruto knew more about Sasuke than I did, or perhaps he was just better at reading people! "Sto -!" I started to say, but I could not finish because in a flash Sasuke had broken his arm out of Naruto's grip in a taijutsu move and shoved a fist in the exact direction he had heard the noise.

He hit me in the throat.

I came back to myself, gasping for a breath that never came, my vision fading in and out, as a hand clamped tightly around my neck. Then I heard distant shouting - Naruto's voice - "Stop! Sasuke, stop!" - a distant vision of a pair of dark eyes widening in surprise -

And then I could breathe again.

I slumped to the floor, coughing, drool coming out of my mouth. Sasuke was frozen in place in surprise where he had released me. My genjutsu spell had broken, and he had seen me, and how he was surrounded by physical copies of his other new teammate.

"What in the hell possessed you to do that?!" Naruto seemed furious; he physically shoved Sasuke.

Sasuke immediately turned an indignant glare on him. "Me?! What the hell possessed _you two _to sneak up on _me_!?"

"It was just a joke!"

"I don't like being surprised by physical assault!"

"Yeah, asshole, we can tell!"

"We were... we were just trying to prove ourselves to you..." I gasped out, still lying on the floor, humiliated. They turned immediately to me, pausing in surprised silence. "W-we were trying to show we were worthy teammates..."

I looked down, blushing furiously, tears hiding in my eyes as I sat up. For this reason, I almost missed Naruto turn to Sasuke and give him a furious, 'see what you did?' sort of look. Sasuke, for the first time, looked down.

"... Look," he said after a moment. "I'm going to be honest. I didn't want teammates in the first place. I knew any teammates would only weigh me down and it didn't have anything to do with... who you are... as individuals." He seemed to struggle, subtly, to find the right words. Then he looked up and smirked. "Well, except for you, Naruto," he said. "_That _was _totally _personal."

"Fuck you!" Naruto said immediately. "Just watch me prove you wrong!"

And then the fight was over, and they were smirking at each other, and - _Oh my God, _I realized. _They were sitting next to each other because they're __**friends.**_

And then I was just sitting there on the floor, staring at them stupidly.

Naruto came over to me then, and kneeled down next to me. "Hey," he said, looking me closely in the face, in that way people who have no real concept of personal space do, "you okay?"

"Umm." I pulled my face away from his. Felt my throat. Coughed once. "Yeah," I said. "I think I'll be okay." I stood up, ignoring Naruto's hand. Then I took a deep breath and made an effort to look Sasuke calmly in the eyes. "If it's not too much of an inconvenience," I said quietly, "we were thinking we could eat lunch together. That shouldn't interfere with any of your great plans as a ninja, should it?"

To his credit, some emotion that was not necessarily happy passed across Sasuke's face, so quickly I couldn't catch it. He looked away, and nodded once, seriously. "That's fine."

And despite everything, I still liked him. It was awful.

We all sat down on the floor of the empty classroom in a circle to eat, each of us looking down, silent and awkward, with no idea of what to say. The silence was only interrupted by Naruto suddenly standing upright, clutching his stomach. "Bathroom," he said to our surprised faces, wincing, and then he left rather quickly.

It was just me and Sasuke. I had never dared to dream of an opportunity to like this. But now...

Sasuke seemed to have some sort of the same thought. He looked over once, quietly, at the bruise across my neck. Then he looked down, and winced ever so slightly. "... Sorry," he said, seeming much more like a human boy. "For. You know."

I looked down, too. "... You were just being a good ninja," I replied, though I still couldn't quite get the memory out of my head, of his furious black eyes and the hand around my throat. "How did you do that, break out of someone else's grip like that?" I said, shaking my head and looking up at him. "Where did you learn to do that?"

Sasuke looked up, guarded, cautious. "Those are two different questions," he pointed out at last.

I waited, a little angrily. "I think I deserve to know. You got out of Naruto's grip. How would I get out of _your _grip?"

"Are you planning on attacking me again?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No. But for the field. I'd think it would be useful."

He assessed me for a moment. "I can respect that," he said then, surprising me. "Stand up." I did so, as did he. "I grab... say, your shirt." (He had looked at my neck and then decided against it.) He grabbed the lapels of my shirt. "Your job is to hurt my limb at the joint, to dislodge it from your body. Pull my arm straight, in this case by stepping back. Then hit under the elbow..." he grabbed my hand, which made a fist mostly out of nerves, and showed me slowly, "... and then over." He brought my fist crashing, comically slow, down over his elbow. "That should hurt them enough that you'll be able to pull free of the arm."

He dropped my hand immediately and then stepped back, his face business-like. "Do you have it?"

"I do," I said, not admitting the truest part. Those reflexes I'd seen from him - the result of extensive practice. They were unmatched. "Where did you learn that?"

He looked away darkly. "From old scrolls," he said after a while.

"That's right." My eyes widened. "You're like Ino and Hinata. You're from a big clan. So..." My nose wrinkled in confusion. "Why didn't you learn it from your parents?"

"They're dead," he said flatly.

There was a very heavy silence as I realized my mistake. He still wouldn't look at me.

"Naruto is, too, you know," was the first thing that flew out of my mouth. He looked over at me in surprise. "Naruto's also an orphan," I said quietly. "I didn't know if you knew that. And I used to think Naruto acted out and was an idiot because he didn't have any parents. Now..." I took a deep breath. "I was wrong," I admitted boldly. "About... a lot of things. Concerning both of you.

"I guess I just still have a lot to learn about my two new friends."

"I don't have the luxury of friends," Sasuke said immediately, looking over at me warningly.

I smiled sadly, because I'd seen the way he looked at Naruto. "What does that even mean?" I asked, and he didn't seem like he knew how to answer me.

As we were looking at each other, Naruto burst back into the room. "So what'd I miss?! He's not hurting you again, is he?!" Naruto looked suspiciously between us.

"I was just saying you two are my newest friends." I looked over at him, smiling, putting my hands behind my back.

Naruto paused wonderingly, his eyes flying open as he looked at me as if in a whole new way.

And then he seemed to think about something. "You're willing to be friends with someone who just strangled you? Wow. I'm impressed." He raised his eyebrows frankly. "But there's something kind of weird about that, isn't there?"

I blushed. "Goddamnit, Naruto! You just ruined a perfectly good moment!"

Naruto just laughed. Sasuke was exasperated, but he also seemed faintly amused.

As the three of us were walking back together, I pinched my arm behind my back, but I couldn't say I minded.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

We sat there in the classroom and watched the other teams come and go. I gazed after Hinata particularly enviously - her new sensei Kurenai was a tall, glamorous dark-haired woman with exotic red eyes. It would have been so cool to have a strong female mentor to look up to. I still wasn't sure how I felt about being taught by an unknown man, even if I did feel somewhat more at ease with my new teammates - more so, at least, than I'd ever thought I would be.

Pretty soon, we were the only ones left in the classroom besides Iruka-sensei, who sat patiently at his desk. But when even Iruka-sensei sighed, stood, and began packing up to go home, I approached his desk nervously.

"Sensei," I said, "our teacher doesn't seem to be showing up." Just my luck, he was the only one who hadn't.

"Yes, that is peculiar." Iruka-sensei frowned. "Don't worry, though. He should be here soon."

I watched my old Academy teacher leave the room for the afternoon with trepidation. I was not exactly reassured. The last thing any good ninja was supposed to do was bail out on their team leader... But what if he just - never bothered to show up? In my eyes, the possibility seemed depressingly likely. Only the thought of Uchiha Sasuke also being on my team gave me hope. Who would pull a no-show on the most talented kid in the graduating class?

As the clock ticked on, and I shifted restlessly in my seat in the silence, I sighed.

"What is it?" Naruto asked from where he was lounging elsewhere in the classroom, vaguely curious, seemingly for a lack of anything else to do.

"I wish I'd brought a book," I admitted. "I'm so bored. I hate -"

"Waiting." Naruto nodded. "It's the worst." He thought for a moment and then stood decisively. "I'm going to go get you a book from the library."

"You can't do that!" I sat up straighter, panicking slightly. "What if the teacher comes while you're gone?"

"Then he shouldn't have shown up late!" Naruto replied irritably, with impeccable logic.

I frowned. "But -"

"Let him." We both looked at Sasuke, who had spoken reservedly. "If he wants to risk getting in trouble with a Jonin, that's his prerogative." He shrugged and nodded in the direction of Naruto.

"See?" Naruto said, waving a hand in Sasuke's direction. "I don't even know what prerogative means and I still agree!" Sasuke snorted.

Despite all my protests, Naruto left the room in a decisive sort of way. I looked after him worriedly.

"Don't concern yourself with it." I turned in surprise to Sasuke, who was eyeing me sideways. "Naruto's right, in a way. The teacher is the one who chose to show up late. As long as he comes back... How is he showing the teacher any less respect than the teacher showed him?"

This actually made sense. When Naruto brought the book back and held it out to me, beaming - it was an action adventure novel - I smiled shyly, sheepish, and took it from him. "Thanks, Naruto," I said, in what I tried to make genuine gratefulness.

I hadn't expected my teammates to be so... nice.

("I didn't even know you knew where the library was," Sasuke said, and Naruto replied, "Fuck you," just as matter of factly. So they still weren't very nice to each other.)

I curled up in a window seat with the book and was about halfway through chapter two - the time seemed to fly by with a book in my hand - when I heard a noise and glanced up absently. And then stopped, staring. "Naruto!" I said, scandalized anew, sitting upright. "What are you doing?"

Naruto, restless again, had gotten up on a chair and shoved an eraser into the wedge at the top of the door, so that the eraser would fall on the teacher when he went to open it. "Come on!" Naruto looked over at me, grinning. "It'll be funny!"

"A Jonin won't fall for something like that," said Sasuke immediately.

"Au contraire!" Naruto insisted, standing back and smirking. "It's always the simple stuff that really gets to people." Sasuke seemed unconvinced, his eyebrows raised in an unimpressed sort of way.

"But it's kind of boring, don't you think?" I spoke up before I could stop myself, then blushed when they both turned to look at me.

"Pranks are never boring!" Naruto frowned.

"But it's just an eraser," I argued, now almost teasing despite my embarrassment. "Can't you come up with something a little more creative? Whatever happened to the guy who vaulted over the side of a sandstone monument with buckets of paint and plans for making all the men female?"

Naruto's eyes widened, lit in a kind of delight, and then he pointed his finger in my direction. "That's a challenge if ever I heard one!" he said enthusiastically, and I realized too late that I'd just egged him on.

What ended up happening was that Sasuke and I watched Naruto start putting together a more elaborate prank, both of us with the best of intentions of not joining in and then playing the voice of protest when the teacher happened to walk in on us. But watching Naruto put something like that together was actually really interesting. And then I made a suggestion, and then slowly I got pulled in to the vortex, and then Sasuke seemingly couldn't help correcting us, so a suggestion burst inadvertently from him, to his own surprise as much as ours, and then pretty soon, in a fit of boredom, the three of us were planning an elaborate plot to embarrass the Jonin who had made us feel so insignificant by showing up to the first meeting so late.

It was sort of like trap making classes at the Academy. At the end of it all, we had constructed a sort of pully system attached to the ceiling with spare ninja equipment. When the door opened, the eraser full of a special kind of colored chalk would fall toward the Jonin's head just as a bucket of water was flown down the pully system on ninja wire and flung into his face, perfectly timed so that it would hit the chalk in midair and the colors would run down over his head and onto his face. The plan was, seemingly, perfect.

But just as Sasuke had suspected, the Jonin didn't fall for it.

We waited with bated breath as the tall shadow appeared behind the door. A hand reached for the door, it opened slowly... and then we couldn't even track him. One minute the water and chalk were heading toward his head, and the next, he was gone. It was like he'd disappeared into thin air.

I paused in confusion. "Where'd he go?" But Sasuke was already looking cannily behind us. I turned around slowly in dread.

The Jonin was a man, looming up before us. He was so fast we hadn't even seen him cross the room.

He had messy silver hair and a hitai-ate ninja band slid down across his forehead and over one of his eyes. Tall and slim, he wore a dark, skin-tight cloth face mask over his lower face, but it was easy to see the outline of attractive features, high cheekbones and a sharp chin. He was surprisingly young, and couldn't have been older than thirty.

Funny. I had counted on him being old and unreachable.

His eyes were narrowed, and the atmosphere was very cold. "You tried to ruin my face mask," he said in a deadly voice.

I swallowed. "Uh... what?" Naruto, ever helpful, said nervously.

"_You tried. To screw with. The face mask."_

"I don't understand - is that bad?" I was the one to ask.

"Just - just go." He closed his eyes and pointed out the door, as if trying to keep a hold on his temper. "Suffice it to say you have not made a great first impression."

"Neither have you," Sasuke was bold enough to point out, and he didn't even look scared doing it.

The eyes opened, anger flaring within them. _"Go!" _We did.

As he was walking behind us down the hall, I swallowed and asked, "Where are we going?"

"We're having an introductory meeting on the school roof," said our teacher brusquely, and I thought I heard him mutter, "So I can toss you all off of it."

Oops?

* * *

><p>There was an almost sarcastic air to our teacher as he spread his hands, the three of us seated on the school roof before him. "First things first," he said. "We get to introduce ourselves. Doesn't that sound fun?"<p>

It didn't. Especially the way he said it.

"What do we say?" I asked, raising my hand.

"Your name. Your likes. Your dislikes. Your hobbies. Your dreams. That sort of thing." He made it sound sort of vague at the end but, scholarly to the last, I'd already memorized the list and begun compiling in my head a list of ways to respond to each specific question. Now if only I had some paper...

"Why don't you introduce yourself first, Sensei?" Naruto asked. "Show us how it's done!" He managed to make it sound really macho when he said it. Guys were so weird.

"Alright. My name is Hatake Kakashi. I have no intention of telling you my likes or dislikes -"

"Can we get away with saying that?" I asked.

"No."

_Damn._

"I have few hobbies. And as for dreams... eh. Who needs 'em?" My ninja teachers, they were just full of inspiration. _I bet Kurenai has aspirations in life._

"You first," Kakashi said then, turning to Naruto.

Naruto talked a lot about cup ramen. A _lot. _To hear Naruto tell it, his entire _life _revolved around eating ramen. I did catch one bit about Iruka taking him out to get ramen at a restaurant called Ichiraku's, and I filed that away in the back of my mind under the section labeled _Weird connection between Naruto and Iruka. _(Because, hello? He never took me out to dinner. And I got As on all his tests!)But then I heard Naruto say his dream was to become the Hokage, one who would surpass all his predecessors. I'd heard him say that before, a long time ago when he was a little kid and we'd all had big dreams, back when we were first starting out at the Academy - other kids had laughed at him and I'd felt kind of bad, though I was too much of a moral coward to really do anything about it. But it was just surprising to hear he still had that dream, despite all his shitty grades and constant rebellion. I guess everyone else just gave up on the big dreams after a while. Life got in the way.

So, in a way, past all the food obsession Naruto was actually kind of inspirational. He just kept surprising me.

Then it was my turn. Oh goodie.

I took a deep breath and tucked a strand of loose hair self consciously behind one ear, back into my bun. "My name is Haruno Sakura. I like... cats, books, flowers... warm blankets, hot chocolate... um, lots of stuff. Oh! And training. Of course." I had remembered to tack that on at the end because the Hokage had told me I needed to 'sell myself as a ninja' more.

Kakashi gave me a funny sort of smile. I had trouble reading it. "No one _likes _training," he said. "They like to reap the benefits of training afterward, and look cool in fights. So I take it you like looking cool in fights?"

"I..." I had flushed, embarrassed, unsure how to continue. There was something about the way Kakashi looked at people. There was a cold, calm edge to it.

"Sakura likes proving herself! Like me!" Naruto saved me at the end. He turned to me and nudged me. "Right?"

"Yeah!" I smiled, looking down. "Definitely." It was even true, after all. "I don't like... waiting." I couldn't help but look up at Kakashi-sensei, deadpan, at this part. For some reason, he smiled again.

"My hobbies are... I don't know. I listen to music. Watch movies. Read books... Umm... Oh! I make photo collages and... work on puzzles... dress in dorky outfits... and... I'm a complete nerd! Please don't listen to anything I have to say!" I had been rambling. My face burning, I put my face in my hands and my hands in my lap. Finished.

Except I wasn't.

"And... dreams?"

I blinked and lifted my head a little, looking into my palms. What _were _my dreams? My first thought went to Sasuke and how much I... loved?... him, and my second thought went to what I'd told my friends about not wanting to have to rely on other people in fights. Then I thought of Naruto and his child's dream, and I remembered that once I had wanted to be a powerful Jonin kunoichi, with tons of amazing spells and techniques. Then I thought of what I'd told the Hokage, about wanting to murder serial rapists.

So, what _was _my dream?

"I want to get married," I started slowly, because for some reason that was easiest. "I want to be a strong ninja in my own right. And... I know what I don't like. I don't like sexist men. I want to help women," I started, and then I was at a loss for what exactly I meant.

I looked up slowly at Kakashi. "Do you see... what I mean?"

He was thoughtful. "Yes," he said. "I think I do."

And in that moment, I really, actually, truly liked my new teacher.

But Sasuke still hadn't had his say.

"You next," said Kakashi, turning to Sasuke, and Sasuke began.

"I dislike many things and I like very few," he started, coldly. "I disdain hobbies and I have an ambition that I have no intention of leaving as a mere dream. I wish to revive my clan, and... to _kill_ a certain man."

I didn't know how to feel. On one hand, there was the calculated pause, the _disdain _of _mere _human things like hobbies and dreams. The fact that he wanted to murder someone. On the other hand, there was the fact that all ninja had to murder someone at some point, and there was also the incredibly attractive way he'd said it. There was just something about his poise and his calm, the way he shamelessly and deliberately uttered every word. _Reviving your clan? _was my first thought. _I'd be willing to donate some eggs for that._

My next thought was, _Thank God no one here is a telepath._

* * *

><p>"Alright. You all have different personalities. Very good. That will make this next exercise..." And here Kakashi-sensei paused for a moment. "<em>Interesting," <em>he said at last.

"Exercise?" I asked.

"We'll be doing a mission together," said Kakashi, and Naruto responded by exploding.

"I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS! What is our first mission, SIR?!" Naruto sat up straight and saluted.

"During this mission, it will just be the four of us..." said Kakashi, leadingly, and I could tell he was just screwing with us by the upping the tension. Damn, if it wasn't working, though.

"What is it, what is it, what is it, what is it, what is it -"

"Kakashi-sensei, tell him, shut Naruto up!" (That was me.)

"Alright." Kakashi lifted his hands and all went silent. He smirked and I felt a distinct sense of foreboding. "As you wish. What we will be doing is survival training."

"We're training - and it's a mission?" Why was I the only one asking these questions? They were important questions!

"Yes - or, to be more specific, if you do not succeed at this training you will no longer be a ninja. So, it's a mission, for you." Here, he smiled.

_That _got our attention.

"You see, out of all twenty-seven graduates," said Kakashi, darkly amused at our expressions, "only nine will become Genin. The rest will be sent back to the Academy. This training is actually a second Genin test with a 66 percent fail rate."

Naruto shouted aloud in horror. Sasuke straightened, eyes widening slightly.

"But that's logistically impossible! We'd have heard about this before!" I protested, flabbergasted.

"At least someone's paying attention. Smart girl." Kakashi-sensei nodded. "She makes a fair point. No, you're right, most of the rest will actually be sent into the reserves with no hope of ever advancing. Which is _worse _than being sent back to the Academy." He seemed to be taking great humor out of this.

"But... but I went through all that _work..._" Naruto was still staring blankly.

"Says you. You slacked off in school. It's Sasuke and I who should be angry," I muttered rebelliously, gritting my teeth as I glared up at our unrepentant Sensei.

"Hey, I worked hard to get those Cs! She's right, though, why aren't _you _saying anything?" Naruto looked over in puzzlement at Sasuke.

"There would be no point." Sasuke's eyes had narrowed. "But I don't intend on failing." His words were just as deliberate and cold as they had been ever since we'd arrived on this rooftop. It was as if being within sight of his goal had awakened something deep in the back of his mind.

"Neither do I!" Naruto looked forward stubbornly, pounding a fist.

"Well, I sure don't," I agreed, more confidently than I felt.

Kakashi had been watching us closely. "Well said," he said, though his smirk still had something a bit too knowing about it.

* * *

><p>Before Kakashi left us there on that rooftop, he told us to meet at a certain training ground on the edge of the village tomorrow morning at five AM and not to eat breakfast because if we did we'd just throw up.<p>

You know what this meant?

That I had to get up at three in the goddamn morning so I would have time to digest all my food and I didn't have to fight on an empty stomach.

I was nervous the entire time. I couldn't sleep that night, even though I cuddled with my kitten and I went to bed early, even though my parents had wished me luck that night before going to their own bedroom. I couldn't sleep at all. I kept running through training and scenarios and strategies in my head. What if I did fail? I kept asking myself. What if I failed and my path as a ninja ended here?

I couldn't let that happen. But statistically, the odds were... not in my favor.

I sat there, staring groggily out the kitchen window as I ate breakfast, the stars still out above me. And I worried.

But soon enough, it was time to pack up all my ninja equipment and head off to the training grounds for my survival training - my second, true test to becoming a Genin.

* * *

><p>The training ground was a dark green forest with a wide clearing in its center. There in the clearing was a field of grass with three posts sticking out of the middle and what looked like a war memorial stone set there before them, a black rock shining out of the grass. When I arrived at the training ground, to my weary relief, Kakashi-sensei wasn't there yet. Sasuke and Naruto, both looking gloomily asleep, walked up as I did. We all set our packs down and began waiting. As the minutes ticked by and Sensei didn't show up, it occurred to me he might be late again.<p>

"Shouldn't we be training?" I asked my teammates at last. They both looked over at me in vague surprise; Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "We'll have to pass together... won't we?" I asked at last, slowly.

Sasuke frowned in thought. "Supposedly," he said, "but we know nothing about the kind of survival training we're supposed to be doing. We could practice trap making, I guess, or go through what we learned at the Academy about team management skills and foraging for food, but if you haven't memorized that stuff or don't understand trap making by now, it won't come to you in an hour."

He seemed to be looking over at Naruto as he said this, and Naruto glared. "I know how to make a trap, asshole!"

"Naruto is actually a good strategist," I spoke up, and blushed as I was rewarded by Sasuke looking at me like I was crazy. Then he looked over dubiously at Naruto... who responded by standing and asking Sasuke loudly if he wanted a fight. Sasuke retreated into sarcastic name calling, and I sighed and closed my eyes, attempting to rub the headache from my temples. All I really wanted to do right now was _sleep..._

When Kakashi finally arrived, it was eleven AM. "Where -" I resisted the urge to swear in front of my teacher's unapologetic face. "Where on earth have you _been_?"

"Yeah, asshole, where the hell have you been?!" Naruto was less inhibited.

Even Sasuke was glaring.

"Sorry, a black cat crossed my path, so I had to -" Kakashi smirked as all the blood rushed in fury to my face. I could have _killed _him.

Kakashi gave a cough which might have been hiding a laugh and set a timer down on the center stump. "This alarm will be set to noon," he said. "You have one hour. Your objective?" He held up two silver bells. "To get these bells from my belt loop."

That was when he explained the rules. We were to attack him, using whatever means necessary to take the bells from him. He would be fighting back, trying to keep the bells from us. Getting a bell meant one passed into Genin. I had raised my hand, anxious, but he already nodded calmly and answered me. There were only two bells. That meant one person would have to fail. They would be tied to the center post without lunch, everyone else's lunch would be eaten in front of them, and to add injury to insult they would be sent back to the Academy or into the reserves.

Reflexively, compulsively, I pictured that person as myself.

"The intent to kill here is vital," Kakashi said, as casually as if he were talking about the weather, and his formidable calm made my nervousness increase. What, exactly, had I gotten myself into?

For the first time in my life, I seriously questioned my desire to be a ninja. And that probably wasn't a good sign.

All of a sudden, I had been catapulted into a situation where I was not supporting my teammates, but literally fighting against them. They both looked so determined as they glared at their new Sensei. We would be competing with each other to become a Genin. One of my competitors was _Uchiha Sasuke. _And I could ask to team up with one of them, but who would I choose? Was it Naruto, who I'd already agreed to learn alongside and support, or was it Sasuke, who I was supposedly in love with?

I couldn't choose. This, I was to learn, is how it always is.

Kakashi dismissed us and I ran off to the side, disappearing into the leaves to go hide and figure out what to do.

* * *

><p>I watched from a hiding place amid the leaves as Naruto confronted Kakashi directly, attacking him there in the clearing with clumsy and off kilter taijutsu hand to hand combinations, prankish tricks, and Kage Bunshin physical copies. Nothing worked. Kakashi fought one-handed, rarely even looking up from the book in his other hand. He moved effortlessly. He fought mockingly, humiliating with careless ease, having a perfect opportunity to kill Naruto at least once. When he replaced with another Kage Bunshin and had the Kage Bunshin start fighting each other, I realized in a blind moment of panic that I had no idea where my teacher was. He was no longer in the clearing. He'd disappeared. I couldn't see him anywhere.<p>

I ran off deeper into the forest, even less assured now than I had been before.

My only ray of hope was that despite all his talk of killing intent, Kakashi-sensei had had a chance to kill Naruto, and he'd left him to fight with himself instead.

* * *

><p>I decided I would wait for Sensei to find me. I made a space in the trees and formed a trap made of ninja wire, hidden within the leaves. Then I climbed up into the branches of a tree to wait, hiding again, watching the ground below, ears straining to catch every little sound around me. I felt jumpy, nervous. I had no idea where he would strike from.<p>

But when he did show up, it seemed relatively simple. (That should have been my first clue that something was wrong.) He walked into the clearing, reading his book, and then paused freezing up as he triggered a hidden wire and strong ninja wire wrapped around his frame, binding him there like rope. I made a hand seal silently and began the same simple genjutsu I had used on Sasuke, making myself invisible as I started to climb lightly down the tree to get around him and reach for a bell...

But I gasped involuntarily as I stepped down onto the next branch and it began moving, destabilizing me. It was a snake! I had stepped on a snake instead of a branch! As I yelped and began backing up unsteadily along the snake's body, it raised its head and hissed at me -

I was in a Genjutsu, I realized somewhere in the back of my mind. Somehow, he was fighting my illusion with an illusion, layered on top of mine. That had to be it.

Panicking, I closed my eyes hard and forced chakra out into the air around me, pushing, pushing -

And then while I was thus distracted, an arm wound its way around me, pulling me back against a hard male abdomen. I felt the cold metal of a kunai knife against my neck.

The snake was gone and I was very, very visible to Kakashi-sensei behind and above me.

I swallowed, and it occurred to me for a split second that I could die here. There was no amazing revelation following this realization, which seemed anticlimactic somehow.

Then Sasuke's lesson came back to me. With effort, I grabbed Sensei's other hand, the one not holding the knife, pulled it straight, strained my arm up with effort, hit his arm, and ducked underneath his grasp, flying to the other side of the clearing, whirling around, and getting into a stance. He stood there and we watched each other across the clearing for a moment, me breathing heavily. I couldn't tell whether he'd let me leave his grasp.

"... You used a Kage Bunshin," I said, when it didn't seem like he was about to kill me. "Like Naruto. I trapped a Kage Bunshin."

"Yes," he said simply. "You could not have made such a thing. You do not have enough chakra."

"So I've been told," I grumbled, downcast.

"But Naruto could not have done what you did. It was clever, using your brain and your high chakra control to your advantage to craft that illusion trap. You just happened to be unlucky enough to run into me. I know how to use Genjutsu as well, and I saw through you easily.

"But you still could have gotten a bell when I put my own genjutsu on you. You panicked. A good ninja never panics out in the field."

And with this almost disappointed close, he disappeared from my field of vision. The next thing I knew, I felt a blow to the back of my head and I lost consciousness.

* * *

><p>When I woke, my splitting headache was back. I sat up slowly. I was alone in the forest with a bad taste in my mouth and a dull ache in my chest.<p>

I had failed.

I sat there for a moment, miserable, and then slowly got up and began heading back toward the clearing. I was resigned, now, to what I had known all along: I would come back to find Naruto and Sasuke as Kakashi's new disciples and myself tied to the post with no lunch. I had no special techniques, like Sasuke and even (somehow) Naruto had, and I would be sent into the reserves, as unremarkable as I had always assumed I would be.

I told myself it was good I would get no lunch, since I had already eaten. It only made me feel slightly better.

But as I was walking back, I came upon a distinctly odd sight. I paused, staring. Sasuke's head was sitting there on the ground. A macabre, hysterically funny kind of nausea gripped me. I smiled and I didn't understand why. What was wrong with me? Why was the horror growing inside me so disproportionate to my face?

Then the eyes looked up at me, and after a horrible start, I realized it was not a severed head. Sasuke had been buried underground with his head sticking out of the top.

"Wha -?" I began, and then just left it hanging there.

"Sensei," said Sasuke flatly, annoyed and deadpan.

That surprised me. So Sasuke had not bested Kakashi-sensei either. "Did you see the rest of Naruto's fight...?" I began at last, curious despite myself.

"Kakashi played another trick on him to trap him and left him tied up there in the clearing," said Sasuke. "None of us have won. Now help me get out of this."

_None of us have won. _As frustrated as he sounded, for some unaccountable reason this made me feel better. I took out a kunai knife and began cutting away at the ground around Sasuke to free him as he used the basic Academy technique to get out of bonds to loosen himself.

At last, he was out, and I turned to him and tried weakly, "Do you want to team up to try to get a bell...?" I already had an idea of what the answer would be.

Sasuke looked at me sideways for a moment. "I work alone," he said at last. "I can't afford friends."

"You keep saying that," I said wonderingly, and then I remembered his goals. "Is it because of the man you have to kill?" It was such a personal question, I regretted saying it the moment it had come out of my mouth. "I'm sorry, I -!"

"No, it's okay," Sasuke said, though he seemed tense, guarded. "You're right."

My eyes flew open in surprise. His bored into mine seriously.

Then the glance was broken and he stood and flitted away, back into the trees. Only then did it occur to me that I didn't have to have helped him.

* * *

><p>I was walking slowly back toward the clearing again when the alarm bell rang. I entered the clearing and found, to my surprise, a stern looking Kakashi-sensei standing above Naruto, who was tied to the center post and seemed rather unhappy about it.<p>

"Wha -?" I seemed to be saying that a lot around my new teammates.

"He untied himself and tried to steal the lunches and have lunch early, keeping all the food for himself," said Kakashi, sounding in his own way just as flat and annoyed as Sasuke had. "Come out, Sasuke, I know exactly where you are and the time's up!"

After a moment, Sasuke walked begrudgingly into the clearing, clutching a knife and looking deeply angry.

We sat slowly on either side of Naruto, each holding a lunch, and Kakashi stood above us, as he had the first time we'd met him.

"Well." He clapped his hands sarcastically. "None of you need to return to the Academy or go into the reserves."

"Really?" I was surprised, disbelieving.

Naruto started cheering.

"That's right! Good job! You all completely fail at being ninja and should quit altogether!" Kakashi gave us his best smile.

Naruto stopped cheering with a choke and dead silence fell around the clearing. I swallowed, again. Kakashi's eyes roved around us, and paused on me, for a moment. And at last, he explained.

That was when Kakashi told us the meaning of the test: teamwork. We were supposed to work together to get the bells. The mission objective was the bells. He wanted to see if one of us would be willing to bite the bullet so the whole team could succeed at getting the bells. If that had happened, he'd have passed all three of us. But we didn't cooperate with each other.

"Naruto! You did everything on your own and thought only of yourself.

"Sasuke! You assumed the other two would pull you down and refused to work with them.

"Sakura! You had more potential to bring the team together than anyone, and on at least one occasion you almost did. But you got scared and second guessed yourself, couldn't decide who you wanted to work with, so you did nothing. You panicked, just like you panicked with me in that clearing back there.

"You all reacted, in short, like little kids. And we can't afford that out in the field. Things are dangerous enough as it is." Kakashi walked over to the memorial stone, his expression serious. "As selfish as you three were, none of you would deserve to be on this stone alongside the names of my friends."

I understood immediately what he meant, and in that moment I promised myself never to be panicky and scared in dangerous situations again. Missions, apparently, were about self sacrifice. But Naruto didn't get it.

"Your friends are on that stone?" he asked, puzzled.

"The names of heroes are on this stone," Kakashi said cryptically, staring down at the names.

"Well, then, I want to be on that list!" Naruto boasted proudly, immediately.

"No, you don't, Naruto," I said quietly, scoldingly, seriously. "That's a memorial stone. All the people on it are KIA. They died in battle."

Naruto faded immediately, his cheerful face sagging almost sadly. Sasuke was dead silent.

Kakashi gazed at the stone for a moment, and then turned around. "I'll give you one more chance," he said, deadly, warning. "But the fight for the bells will be much harder after lunch, since all three of you will be attacking me at once. And, nobody will give Naruto any food. He broke my rules. And if _you _break my _new _rules, that's the end for you."

Kakashi left the clearing.

Sasuke and I ate in heavy silence, me trying to enjoy the respite for as long as I could. It was hard, though. Naruto's stomach kept growling. And he looked so pathetic, just sitting there...

Naruto noticed me looking and attempted a smile. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm fine." He wasn't. This, I was to learn, is how it always is.

"If he fights on an empty stomach, he could pass out," I said worriedly, looking over at Sasuke. "But if he eats on a full stomach, he could throw up."

"So could we. Sensei has _us_ eating," Sasuke pointed out. "I was just thinking the same thing. Sensei's not around. Somebody should give Naruto food -"

"Aww, that's sweet, Sasuke -" Naruto interjected sarcastically.

"He'll be useless enough as it is," Sasuke finished coolly, smirking. The smirk widened when Naruto swore him out.

"How about we each feed him?" I suggested, nervously, glancing around us as if expecting Kakashi to walk out from the trees at any second. I disliked breaking the rules, even when it seemed necessary. "We'll each give him a little bit of food from our lunch."

Sasuke nodded and set his platter down in front of me. "You feed him, I'll keep watch." Sasuke kneeled before us, keeping vigil, waiting for Sensei. I sat before Naruto and fed him a few bites of my food (his hands were tied).

Then, suddenly, Kakashi-sensei _did _come out from the trees. He leaped out before us with no warning. There was a huge wind ninjutsu spell that blew up all the air around us, and Kakashi loomed up before us furiously, and he shouted, "_You broke the rules! Are you prepared to receive your punishment?!"_

"But Sensei, there was something wrong with the rules in the first place -!" I argued.

"Punish me, don't punish them -!" Naruto called in alarm, which I thought was rather touching.

_"Are you ready to receive your punishment?!" _Kakashi-sensei overrode us.

"Yes, fine!" Sasuke stood, taking a stance in front of us. "Do your worst!" And in that moment, he was kind of awesome.

And then the wind faded and the sun came out. Kakashi deflated, and smiled. "Congratulations," he said. "You all pass."

"... Huh?" was the collective, bewildered response.

"You were the first team to actually get the definition of teamwork," Kakashi shrugged.

"... You _wanted_ us to break the rules..." I realized wonderingly.

Kakashi smiled slightly. "Sometimes," he said, "we need to break the rules for our friends. Those who break the rules are considered trash in the ninja world. But..." He gazed quietly up at the sky. "Those who abandon their friends are worse than trash, in my opinion. One of the heroes on that stone once taught me that."

I untied a blissfully happy and overly emotional Naruto from the stump, so amazed I wasn't sure how to react. My hands were shaking, and Naruto took them, and we looked up and smiled at each other incredulously. Even Sasuke had relaxed, his face warm and slightly happier, more emotive, than usual.

And, Kakashi leading the way quietly, the four of us left the clearing together. And from then on we were Team Seven.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

I would watch for years, first thing in the morning standing outside my Academy classroom, shy but eager, clutching my binder to my chest, as the adult ninja made their way down the hall past me and into a spare classroom across the hall, to be handed missions by the Hokage and official Chuunin inside. I would gaze in awe and wonder what it was like to be them. So the first time I walked into that room myself and up to the assignments table with Team Seven, I was pretty excited. Proud of myself, even.

Then the Hokage handed us our first assignment: a D-rank.

Let me explain. Missions were assigned to ninja by whoever came to their Hidden Village and paid to have them do their dirty work. Ninja were essentially hired help. The client paid the village, the village paid the ninja. Pretty simple, right? Missions were assigned into ranks according to the level of difficulty and risk, and missions of appropriate rank were given to the appropriately leveled ninja on a first come, first serve basis. A was the riskiest, followed by B, then C, then D - the lowest. (S ranks were practically myths. They were world changing missions supposedly only given to the absolute elite.) I knew all this from my memorization at the Academy. And I knew that as Genin, we would be assigned D ranks first.

But even I hadn't expected the D ranks to be so... boring.

"Aww, I know, it's okay..." I jiggled the screaming toddler up and down in my arms, desperate. We were in the vast summer mansion of one of the Fire Daimyo's lords, being paid to take care of his son. I was around soft velvet purple carpets and expensive vases, and I couldn't even enjoy it.

"Please stop crying," Naruto begged the wailing infant, covering his ears. "Please stop crying. Why won't it stop crying?!"

"Don't yell at it, Naruto, that's not going to make it any better!" I snapped, and grabbed a bowl of baby food mush from off the table. "Here, you want something to eat?" I said in my best cutesy voice. "Here we go, say 'aah'..." I made a noise as I moved the spoon toward his mouth - and he knocked it away with one of his flailing fists, getting the food all over the front of my blouse.

I stopped, my eye twitching. _Do not kill the baby. Do not kill the baby._

I turned to my teammates, wondering why no one was helping me. Naruto was in the fetal position with his ears covered. Kakashi was sitting in a corner, bored and reading, like he always was when he was supposed to be watching us complete missions. Sasuke had his arms crossed and was facing the wall as if he couldn't even hear the infant in the room.

"Sasuke," I begged, "could you please help me by holding the baby? This is your mission, too." I tried not to sound accusatory. Even if I was really frayed and annoyed.

Sasuke twitched. He slowly looked around at the baby, as if it were his mortal enemy. Then, at last, he walked over reluctantly, grabbed the little boy underneath the arms, and held him at arm's reach with a distasteful look on his face.

Well, at least it was something.

"What could he want -?" I wondered, running a hand through my hair. (I had given up on looking nice on these missions about halfway through the first one. They were all simple, local paid tasks, but for all that they tended to leave someone dirty, messy haired, sweaty, and gross. That was why the clients paid other people to do them.)

"Try changing him." I looked around. Kakashi-sensei had taken pity on me, after a fashion, and was watching the goings on with vague, dry amusement. "His diaper probably needs to be changed."

"You're telling me I'm going to have to change a _diaper_?" I asked incredulously. (Of course it was going to be me. Because the boys on my team were apparently _wimps.)_ "That's my big assignment as a ninja?"

"Yup." Kakashi-sensei still looked irritatingly amused. He seemed to take great joy in watching me get angry.

"But - but I don't know how to change a diaper!" I had no siblings or younger cousins. The closest I'd ever come to handling shit was when I helped Ino and her mother in their flower shop with the fertilizer.

Kakashi eyed me for a moment. "I'll walk you through it," he sighed at last, standing and stretching languidly.

"You'll do it?" I asked hopefully, perking up.

"Oh, no, you're changing the diaper. But I'll talk you through it," said Kakashi.

"How do you even know how to change a diaper?" I asked as we began walking down the hall to the changing room, Sasuke and Naruto with the baby I'd vengefully left them with walking along behind us. "Do you have kids?"

"Single and enjoying it that way," said Kakashi simply. "But I was once a Genin, too, you know. It's these special experiences that make up your fondest memories of being a Genin."

"Really?"

"No."

* * *

><p>It was a long hike through a lot of forestry, down a lot of dirt trails, and up and over a lot of hills to get to the next town after Konoha. By the time we made it there, it was in the heat of the day and we had no idea where the big warehouse we were supposed to visit to pick up supplies at actually was.<p>

"I think it's this way," said Naruto seriously, squinting at the map and pointing.

"Naruto, that map is sideways," I said.

"... Oh."

Sasuke sighed, apparently too tired to make a sarcastic comment. "I know where it is," he offered. "I've been here before." And he led the way.

As we walked along, I watched the civilians pass to and fro around us, a flurry of color and life. I had never been outside the military base of Konoha. Things seemed so much different here: not as harsh, easier going. People our own age acted like kids, laughing and playing in the street, and inconvenient fashion replaced the ninja and kunoichi outfits of Konoha.

_What would my life have been like, _I wondered, _if my parents had decided to live here instead...?_

* * *

><p>It was just about as hot when we were knelt in an old lady's back garden in Konoha a few days later, digging up potatoes. I had known nothing about gardening vegetables at all before this afternoon, but the little old lady who'd requested the mission had taken us out back and given us a crash course in how she planted and ran her vegetable garden, how to know when the vegetables were ripe, and how to dig them up out of the earth. Then she'd left us to it. The digging up, the hardest part, she had trouble doing for herself now that she was having back and hip problems.<p>

"Naruto, you're ruining them," I said quickly, leaning over and grabbing his hand to pull it back from where he was yanking the potatoes too hard out of the earth. Too late, we realized our hands were touching and I pulled mine back quickly, burning. That had been happening a lot lately. Whenever I brushed against Naruto, or looked in Sasuke's eyes too long, I felt a sudden thrill and I wasn't sure if it was horror or embarrassment or something else.

Naruto looked up at me in puzzlement, discerning. He was distracted by Sasuke's exasperated scoff.

Naruto whirled his head around to glare at his friend. "What?!"

"It's not that hard."

"I wasn't doing it wrong!"

"Yeah. You were."

"Boys..." I said, feeling the familiar headache coming on. They'd been snapping at each other a lot lately. If we didn't get a better mission soon, they were going to go stir crazy.

* * *

><p>"I swear, everyone on my team is lazy!" Ino was fuming. She, I, and Hinata were sitting at a little table outside a cafe, having a morning tea. We'd been so busy it was the first time we'd met up since officially graduating. By a stroke of luck, each of us was on one of the three active-duty teams chosen, and so was constantly being sent out on D ranks. "Asuma-sensei has us do, maybe, three missions a week. And then he just takes us out to lunch! And Chouji eats enough as it is! And then Asuma-sensei and Shikamaru sit around and play shougi together."<p>

"Lucky," I pouted. "Kakashi-sensei assigns us an impossible number of tasks and then reads while we finish them like it's no big deal. And they're all so _boring."_

"Kurenai-sensei pushes us really hard in training. We've been concentrating on that instead of D ranks. She already has us going out of the village on a C rank this coming Tuesday," Hinata said softly.

"Really?"

"That's great!"

Ino and I were surprised, but supportive.

"Yes," said Hinata quietly. "She's a very reasonable person and she gives good advice. I'm afraid she's not going to think I'm a good enough ninja, though. I'm working very hard to impress her."

"Then I'm sure you're doing fine," said Ino dismissively. "It's the hard work that counts."

"Yeah, she's not your father," I said. "Don't worry too much about it. You're really going out on a C rank? That's so... _cool_," I decided, envious once more.

Then Ino sat up and smiled mischievously. "You're just about to go meet your team for missions, right?" she asked eagerly. I nodded... "Do you mind if we come and say hi?" she asked next.

What could I say? I said they could come.

I had been making some head way as far as making friends with Sasuke and Naruto went. As for my other mission... I had asked Sasuke how he tried to defeat Kakashi-sensei, and he said he'd used a combination of traps, elemental ninjutsu spells, and taijutsu hand to hand combat. (Not that it had worked, and that reminder seemed to make him distinctly sour.) I went out and bought a special kind of paper one could buy that told what spell element you were affinitied to when you channeled chakra through it. My element was fire, which did me little good because I had no scrolls to learn fire ninjutsu spells from, and it would have felt strange asking Sasuke to show me his. He didn't seem the type to share. Sasuke's element was also fire, and he had an additional affinity to water that I didn't have, so it wasn't like learning fire ninjutsu spells would have been very effective in the context of my group anyway. Sasuke already had that covered.

I did ask Sasuke if he'd taijutsu spar with me on the bridge over the local river that we waited at each day, sometimes for hours, for Kakashi-sensei to finally get around to showing up. Sasuke did, and he showed me how pitiful I was at my own hand to hand combat by beating me soundly and painfully, every time. It didn't _feel _like I was getting any better, which was a little depressing. But I stuck with it, because I needed to be better at close combat. For now, I could only do long distance: ninja equipment strategies and basic genjutsu illusions. I tried to experiment around a little with illusion spells as well, but I couldn't get very far. I didn't have a good teacher.

So Ino and Hinata walked with me in the morning sunlight up to the bridge, and when it was in sight, there were Sasuke and Naruto, waiting quietly. Ino gasped in delight when I called out, "Sasuke! Naruto!"

They looked around in surprise as I waved from my place beside Ino and Hinata.

Ino barged past me and went right up to Sasuke. "Hi, Sasuke-kun!" she enthused, clasping her hands before herself and batting her eyes in a way she probably thought was alluring. Sasuke gave her a weary and bewildered sort of look in return.

"You guys remember Ino," I said dryly, coming up behind her. "And this is Hinata." Hinata was half hidden behind me.

Sasuke nodded to her, vaguely curious, and Naruto said, "Hi, quiet girl who has a name." He grinned. Hinata seemed to catch her breath, her trademark silvery eyes flying open as she gazed at him.

"He's so bright..." I heard her whisper.

Naruto frowned. "You okay?" he asked her.

Hinata blushed and nodded, fiddling with her fingers and looking down. "Y-yes," she said. "Thank you..."

"She's a little shy," I explained to Naruto's puzzlement.

"Oh," he said, his face changing in understanding. "Okay."

Hinata didn't speak for the rest of the meeting, and Ino spoke too much. As I watched them leave, I gazed particularly after Hinata. I might not see her again till after she got back from her first away mission...

Why wasn't Kakashi-sensei giving us any of those?

I voiced this question suddenly to my teammates without looking at them, and Naruto said, his eyes widening, "Yeah, I've been wondering that too! We're too awesome not to deserve a better ranking mission!"

"We could do more," Sasuke agreed, with that thoughtful, dissatisfied frown.

"We should ask Kakashi-sensei," I announced.

"_You _should ask Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke corrected.

I scowled. "Why me?"

"'Cause he'll just make fun of us," Naruto muttered.

"And why wouldn't he make fun of me, might I ask?" I questioned, putting my hands on my hips.

Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other and then looked back at me, smirking.

"What?" I suddenly got the feeling I was missing something.

"Oh," said Naruto. "Nothing. Just trust us, okay?"

* * *

><p>On our next mission, we had to hunt down the Fire Daimyo's wife's lost cat. We used all our tracking and stealth skills to find Tora the cat and surround him in one of the forests around Konoha. We were hidden in various positions, in trees and behind bushes and tree trunks, watching Tora walk unsuspectingly along below us. We were communicating with each other via walkie talkies, Kakashi directing our proceedings from afar. The seriousness to the situation was almost comical.<p>

"Sasuke, arrived at point B," I heard.

"Sakura, arrived at point C," I breathed into the walkie talkie.

There was a pause.

"... Naruto, arrived at point A," came the response at last, to his credit, quiet.

"Be faster, Naruto," said Kakashi-sensei immediately. "Are you all ready? ... _Go!"_

We leaped out from our hiding positions. I had Tora from left, Sasuke had Tora from the right, we moved together to pin the alarmed cat in at the front, and Naruto jumped out from behind and on top of the cat, pinning the hissing feline to the forest floor.

"Do we have the target? Does it have the right collar and the ribbon on its ear?" Kakashi asked through the walkie talkie.

"It's Tora," Sasuke confirmed, looking over the cat without care as it mauled his friend. I went over to Tora and removed him from Naruto, cuddling him in my arms until he stopped scratching them and calmed down. (I was a cat person. With a dog, I would not have had the same luck. We had done a dog walking mission the other day... the dog kept pulling me along and yapping. It was awful.)

"You shouldn't have asked for the lead role if animals don't like you," I told Naruto in dry amusement as he stood, brushing himself off. (Naruto had taken the big dog the other day, too. It had pulled him right into a training field rigged with explosive tags. We had been trained to get our way out of such eventualities, but Naruto's clothes had still gotten a little singed.)

"I wanted to be important! But, yeah... Animals hate me. Don't understand why. They must think I smell funny or something," said Naruto.

"Imagine that," said Sasuke dryly, and I covered my mouth with a hand to hide my smile.

Naruto glared at his friend. "Someday, I'm just going to beat the shit out of you and you won't even know what's coming."

"I look forward to that. We should head back."

We met up with Kakashi-sensei and began heading back to the Academy, Kakashi calling ahead to make sure Fire Lady Shijimi was there in the mission assignments room when we got there. "Kakashi-sensei," I said, a bit nervous, walking up beside him. "Do you think... we could get a higher level mission?"

"Nope." Kakashi had gone back to his book. He didn't even look up.

"Why not?!" Naruto asked from up ahead.

"Because it is my and the Hokage's considered opinion that you're too incompetent to handle it," said Kakashi dryly. Naruto was right, he _had _only made fun of them. Huh. Was it because I was a girl?

"That is bullshit!" said Naruto.

"Actually, this time Naruto's right," said Sasuke, seeming deeply unimpressed.

"But Kurenai-sensei is already putting her Genin out on C rank missions," I revealed.

Kakashi actually paused a bit. "Is she now?"

"Yeah. _She _thinks the Genin _she's _been training can handle it," I said on a sudden inspiration. "Come on, Sensei, how are we going to show we can handle this if you never give us the chance? We've been doing a lot of missions and are pretty aware of how we work together and how to move as a team..."

I expected Naruto to butt in at any moment, but he and Sasuke were silent, waiting with bated breath...

"I'll tell you what," said Kakashi at last. "If you three can convince the Hokage you're ready for a C rank mission, you can go."

Once Naruto had cheered, getting excited and charging ahead, and while Sasuke was watching him in amusement, I asked Kakashi-sensei something else. "Sensei... you're around to train us... right?" I asked, shyly. Kurenai's training her team had given me an idea.

"Yes," said Kakashi at last, raising a curious eyebrow. "I am."

"I've been interested in learning more about spells... I recently found out my element is fire... And I think I'd be pretty good at illusions. Could you maybe... help me with one of those?"

Kakashi looked at me piercingly for a moment. I felt pathetic, not at all like someone who would impress him.

But at last, he said, "... You've been training in close combat with Sasuke, correct?" I nodded. "If you can show me during our first C rank mission that you can fight close distance as well as long distance, and if you can also show me that you've taken my advice about remaining calm to heart... If you show me both of those things, when we get back from the mission, I'll help you with both."

"Deal," I said immediately, and a pact was struck.

* * *

><p>Fire Lady Shijimi was a loud, vastly overweight women in bright clothes and lots of face paint.<p>

("Do they just eat well at the capital?" I asked in a mutter. Sasuke muttered back darkly, "Not exactly. Picture the exact opposite of Fire Lady Shijimi with a sickly face. That's the Daimyo." Sasuke came from a clan and would know more about these sorts of things. It was probably why he'd traveled more, too. Then Naruto snickered at the given image, and Kakashi kicked us in the shins and we shut up.)

The minute she saw her cat, the Fire Lady's entire face transformed. Squealing, she moved slowly toward Tora with her arms out... Tora began panicking, trying to claw out of my arms... but it was too late. As if in slow motion, Fire Lady Shijimi grabbed the cat, suffocated said cat between her breasts, and began shouting in a loud, enthusiastic voice, "Tora! Mommy was so worried about you -!"

"Ha," Naruto muttered vindictively.

"It's just a cat, Naruto," I muttered back. "No wonder it tried to run away."

"Good job, well done Team Seven," said the Hokage from behind the mission assignments table, taking up his list of requested missions. "Next, we have -"

"Actually, Hokage-sama..." I twisted my hands before me and stepped forward, nervously. "We wanted to talk to you about something."

The Hokage lowered his paper, raising an eyebrow. "Yes?"

I looked backward at my teammates. _Help me._

"We'd like to prove to you and our Sensei that we can handle higher level missions," said Sasuke, stepping forward with remarkable calm.

"Yeah! Give us a better mission! These are boring!" added Naruto, unhelpfully.

"That's far too dangerous! You're not ready yet!" said Iruka, who was one of the Chuunin handing out missions that day, standing immediately from his place behind the long table.

I noticed that he was only looking at Naruto.

"What about the two of us?" I asked, for me and Sasuke. "Are _we_ not ready yet?"

Iruka looked over at me, torn. "... You know what I mean," he said heatedly, looking pointedly over at Naruto, who scowled. Abruptly, I felt sorry for Naruto. Protection could sometimes be condescending.

"I'm not sure I do," said Sasuke defiantly, and I went off with that.

"Sasuke was the best in the class. And I... well, I always got good grades on your tests. But you're the one who's always telling me I doubt myself!" I argued. "And as for Naruto... he's not what you think." _He's not what __**I **__thought. _"And how is he ever going to get any better if he's just stuck here in Konoha all his life?"

"See! Thank you!" Naruto waved a hand at me. "I learn better when I'm doing stuff! You know? You have to give me room to _grow,_ Sensei." With only a slight amount of sarcasm in his voice, he raised his arms all-encompassingly.

"Actually, technically, he's not your Sensei anymore. Why should he get a vote?" Sasuke pointed out.

"Because I used to be your Sensei!" Iruka snapped, defensive, growing desperate.

"Used to be," Kakashi echoed, to our surprise, because he'd been staying silent and objective on the whole matter. "I'm their Sensei now. And I said -" He turned to the Hokage, almost apologetically. "It's up to you."

The Hokage had been sitting back, his wood pipe in his mouth, his hands steepled, listening to the whole conversation objectively. Strangely for such an important man, I'd almost forgotten he was there. He paused, watching us searchingly.

"Come on, Grandpa," Naruto said then, in an actually soft voice, meeting the Hokage's eyes. I almost gasped, but neither party seemed to find anything special in the casual name usage. Everyone called the Hokage _Hokage-sama_, or _Lord Hokage. _Or, perhaps, sir. No one outside his family was ever allowed to call him _Grandpa. _ But somehow, Naruto was not punished for saying that exact thing.

(How did all these higher up people just _know _Naruto?)

"I'm not that stupid little kid anymore," Naruto was saying pleadingly. "Just give me a chance."

The Hokage looked at him for a moment... and then at last, he smiled. "Alright," he said. "I'll assign you on a one-month guard escort mission to another country. Would you like to meet your new client?"

A beam lit up my face, and even Sasuke briefly looked happy. "Yes!" Naruto shouted, jumping up in the air. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Is it someone cool? Is it the Daimyo? Is it a princess?"

The questions were absurd, but in that moment anything seemed possible. "Not so fast," the Hokage said, with something oddly like a smirk. He leaned over and called out, "Bring the man from Wave Country in!"

And then the door slid open and a shabby old man with a pot belly and a bottle of alcohol in his hand stumbled his way into the room, leaning heavily against a wall. "... 'S with the midgets?" he slurred, his face flushed heavily from drink, looking over the three young ninja who would be in his employ. Then he smirked. "Hey, who's the pretty girl? She your girlfriend?" He was so wasted, he turned to, of all people, Kakashi.

"She's a little young for me," said Kakashi flatly, and I had never heard anything so polite and so dryly funny at the same time.

I attempted to focus on this and smile, instead of flushing in embarrassment or letting my anger show. Attacking the client was not such a good idea.

Naruto had no such reservations.

"... Hey, one midget's shorter than the rest! And he looks like an idiot. How young are these... _ninja?" _said the client next.

Naruto started laughing. "Who's the shortest one, guys?"

And then we both looked at him.

And understanding flashed across his face.

"Why, I oughta pound you!" Naruto shouted, like something out of an old movie, and Kakashi physically had to restrain him from vaulting across the room and punching the drunk old man in the face. Said drunk old man snickered childishly.

"This is Tazuna, everyone," said the Hokage. He was still smirking, and maybe just a bit vengeful. "He is a construction manager in the Wave Country. You will be leading him back to his home and guarding him until he finishes a bridge building project there. You will then return home. It should be a nice, easy mission: you're just guarding him from possible bandits and thugs. No ninja involved."

Tazuna looked away, stumbling out of the room.

"You'll all meet by the gates out of the village tomorrow morning, with ninja equipment, camping gear, rations, and changes of clothes. Break."

As we left the room, I asked Naruto, "Do you always talk like something out of a TV show?"

"I've watched too many old movies," Naruto muttered, still a little sour. "I've always liked a good story. At first, I thought we were going to be the heroes in some cool action adventure flick. Now I'm kinda thinking this is more like the sort of movie where an old man sexually molests three young teenagers in some dark back alley."

Even Kakashi winced.

"Thanks for that," said Sasuke dryly.

* * *

><p>"So you're going to be gone for a <em>month?"<em>

I winced. "We knew this was going to happen eventually, Mom."

Mom's hands were on her hips in the kitchen, her face concerned and a little angry. "But I didn't think it was going to be this _soon. _Sakura, you're only twelve years old!"

"I've graduated! And Kakashi-sensei will be with us. That's what he's there for." My voice started out fervent, but it ended small. My parents were civilians and they didn't understand the world of the ninja. Every time I tried to explain it to them, I felt stupid, a true case of culture shock.

"So they applied you for this themselves, the Hokage and these... other people?" Dad asked from the table, trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about.

"One of my teammates wanted a better mission," I said, deciding not to mention that I had as well.

"It wasn't that Naruto boy, was it?"

I turned to my Mom in surprise. "Why would you think that?" I asked rather than responding.

"Hmph. He's just always seemed like a troublemaker, that's all," said my mother suspiciously. "I never approved of your being placed on a team with him."

* * *

><p>A tall, smooth wooden wall grew up and over, surrounding the entire village. It met in the center to form gates on the north side. My team and I had been through those gates before, but never to go farther than a few miles in any one direction. We'd certainly never left Fire <em>Country<em> before.

So when the doors were opened before us and we walked on through, it was kind of exciting.

Naruto, as usual, expressed everything he was feeling. "Alright!" he shouted, jumping through the gates and pumping his fists. "Let's go!"

I laughed a little. "Excited, Naruto?"

He looked over at me like a drug addict and nodded really fast. "A little."

"Why?" Sasuke was the one to finally ask, looking from one grinning nerd to the other.

"We're leaving the country!" I reminded him, smiling and nudging his shoulder. "You could at least look a little happy!"

He rolled his eyes, but there was a tiny smile lifting the corners of his mouth and I felt a moment of triumph.

"They're just kids," Tazuna said then, as if in realization. He was sober now. He turned to Kakashi. "Will they be able to handle themselves?"

"Don't worry. I'm a Jounin and I'll also be accompanying you. There's nothing to worry about," said Kakashi, and I felt a strange moment of shame.

"Hey, what's wrong with acting happy?" I asked, strangely annoyed. I looked to my teammates.

"Just ignore them. We'll prove him wrong eventually," said Sasuke, though a little tic had formed between his eyebrows.

Naruto whirled around, pointing. "Yeah!" he shouted. "Someday I'm going to be the Hokage and then you're going to be sorry you doubted me! Me and my teammates are _awesome!"_

Only Naruto could make me feel proud and embarrassed at the same time. It was a sensation unique to him.

"Even if you were Hokage, I still wouldn't respect somebody like you!" Tazuna snapped.

Naruto was about to vault himself forward in fury again, but I said, "What do you mean 'somebody like him'?" and Naruto stopped, turning to me in surprise. My eyes had narrowed.

"You know..." Puzzled, Tazuna waved a hand irritably. "Someone so..."

"Open with his emotions? Unlike you, who hasn't told us anything about yourself. Is that really any better?"

Tazuna immediately got defensive. "Hey, I don't have to tell you guys anythi -!"

"Alright, let's cool it." Kakashi stepped neatly between us. "Sakura." He gave me a look. "Tazuna-san..." And here, when Kakashi turned to the other, his eyes were surprisingly narrowed. "You're right," he said sharply after a moment. "You don't _have_ to tell us anything."

Tazuna looked away, and this time I thought I understood a little of what Kakashi was driving at. Was Tazuna hiding something?

* * *

><p>Testing this theory, I walked up beside Tazuna while we were all traveling down a dirt road through a forest together, the five of us, the day above us hot and dry. "Tazuna-san, do you have a family?" I asked, sweet and polite.<p>

"I have a daughter and a grandson," he answered, proudly.

"And did you leave them behind in the Wave to travel?" I asked.

"I didn't just wantonly travel! I came out here, to get ninja so I can go back and achieve my bridge building project," said Tazuna, frowning.

"So... if you came all the way out here just to get guards for your project... someone is after you," I guessed.

Tazuna immediately shut down. "I don't have to answer these questions! I told you no ninja and that's what I meant!" he barked. I was taken aback. Tazuna turned angrily to Kakashi. "Is this girl always like this?"

I was embarrassed, but Sasuke, who had been listening closely, frowned. "Actually... Sakura never said anything about ninja. For all she knew, the people who were after you could have been a group of thugs."

Kakashi and Naruto were both staring between us, one with a little more poise than the other.

Tazuna straightened and cleared his throat, flushing. "Y... yes. O-of course. That's what I meant. Thugs."

But even Naruto looked a little unsure now.

There was an awkward silence as we all continued down the road together. My curiosity burned, to know more about who was after Tazuna, but also to know about something else. Finally, I just decided to risk asking, the second question at least. "Tazuna-san... and you don't have to answer this if you don't want to..." He gazed sideways at me suspiciously. "Why didn't you turn to the ninja in your own country for help against these... thugs?"

Tazuna snorted. "Don't they teach you anything? The Wave doesn't have ninja."

My eyes widened. "I -" For once, I had no idea what to say. The Academy taught us the basic layout of a Hidden Village, the rules of being a ninja, the ninja arts, ninja strategy, and the ninja history of our own village. That was it. Even learning how to write essays, for example, was a happy byproduct of the intense focus on _being a ninja. _Sure, people from big ninja clans were usually taught international relations and diplomacy by their families, along with ninja myths and legends and other things besides dry historical facts. But I'd had no such training. It had never occurred to me that a whole country could exist that didn't have a huge Hidden Village like our Leaf in it.

Naruto looked as confused as I did.

Kakashi decided to take pity on us. "Look. There are lots of countries in the world, right? Each named after something to do with nature. Some countries have Hidden Villages, some don't. A country's Hidden Village is the equivalent of their military power. The Wave is a small, remote island surrounded by water. It does fishing. It was never surrounded by other countries, so it never needed to build up military power. Fire Country just happens to be, ironically, close to the ocean. So we were his nearest mainland country that had a Hidden Village."

"So... what other countries have Hidden Villages?" I asked.

Kakashi nodded; he'd expected the question. "A Hidden Village is separate from, but equal to, the country it lives in. The country is ruled by its Daimyo, but the Hidden Village is ruled by its Kage - in this case, our Hokage, or Fire Shadow, who has a council to guide him that the Daimyo has a seat on. The Kage is the best ninja the village has to offer, par excellence. This goes for all Hidden Villages. Different countries and villages have different customs and cultures, but the basic layout and structure of each Hidden Village is the same. All Hidden Villages have a Kage.

"Many, many countries have Hidden Villages, but the biggest five are Fire - which has our Leaf, or Konoha - Wind - which has Sand, or Suna - Lightning - which has Cloud, or Kumo - Water - which has Mist, or Kiri - and Earth - which has Rock, or Iwa."

"And who are we closest to?" I asked. "I mean, there must be alliances, right?"

"You catch on quick. That's what the ninja wars were fought over - inter village alliances. We are currently closest to Sand - Suna."

"Sand and Wind?" I asked.

"It's a desert place," he said cryptically. "An Arabia. Very strict, and very spiritual. The village is small and the land is harsh, but that's what makes them formidable."

"Do the Kage ever meet?" Naruto asked, suddenly. "What?" he added at our stares. "I get to ask questions, too! If I want to be Hokage, I should know."

"Occasionally. It's always a big thing, when some of the best ninja in the world meet," said Kakashi.

"... Grandpa's really one of the best ninja in the world?" Naruto muttered after a while.

"Stop questioning Hokage-sama," said Kakashi immediately, reflexively. I wondered if that was just part of what made him a good ninja.

I was reminded of the first time I'd seen the famous Professor - of how small and old he'd looked. And of what I'd thought.

"He's a ninja, Naruto," I said. "We hide."

* * *

><p>So we were walking down the road, and it was hot and dry, but I didn't want to complain. Ninja were supposed to have good endurance, right? We'd been walking for hours, but we'd probably be walking for the rest of the day as well, and through half a day after that. I had to get used to this.<p>

We passed some more trees, down another dirt path, past some more trees, past a puddle which was kind of weird considering it was so dry but okay. And then after I passed the puddle, there was this weird sound behind me, so I looked around...

Just in time to see two tall, dark, masked ninja with slashed missing-nin hitai-ate (the mark of a traitor) rise up out of the puddle, which hadn't ever actually been a puddle at all but an illusion, and wrap a chain weapon - a shuriken chain - held between them around Kakashi-sensei.

_Note to self: The next time I see something weird? Say so._

"One down," the missing nin said as one, and then they tightened the chain, and the sharp metal pricks on the inside ate into Kakashi-sensei's skin, into his eyeballs, the sounds of all his bones snapping, until he collapsed into a puddle of blood and gore there in front of us. I saw the whole gruesome scene up close. And me? I had never been good with scary movies.

I stared, afraid to look, afraid to look away, horrified, nauseous. I couldn't even speak. The cool, the calm, the fearless Kakashi-sensei had been killed. I heard Naruto scream out our Sensei's name, and then the two ninja with the chain had disappeared and in a flash of black - they were just that fast - they were behind Naruto. "Two down," they said as one, and the chain was coming out there for him, and Naruto was looking over his shoulder, frozen in fear.

"_Naruto, move!" _I screamed, and before I could even think about what I was doing, I threw myself forward, shoved Naruto to the ground, and threw myself on top of him. I could feel him trembling underneath me. I waited with my eyes squinted shut for an attack... that never came.

I looked up. Sasuke had pinned the chain to the tree behind it with a perfectly thrown kunai and shuriken. He leaped up and kicked outward, kicking the two ninjas' heads, separating them. He engaged in a taijutsu fight with one of them, a formidable whirl of fists. I saw the other's feet run past us toward... Tazuna.

Who was also frozen in fear.

Tazuna. Of course. People were after him; they were just _ninja_. That was what he'd been hiding.

And I had been right next to him and _I'd just left him there._

Cursing myself, I made a hand seal. I had never had to pull it out under this much pressure before, but there came the genjutsu, silent. It wrapped itself around Tazuna and he disappeared from the missing nin's view. The missing nin paused. Startled for just that split second I needed.

I had no idea if this would work. I kept the genjutsu up with one hand and I reached around to my equipment pack with the other. I was inspired by what Naruto had said, of hanging, virtually invisible, below the viewing platform on the Hokage Monument. I tied a piece of ninja wire to the end of a kunai knife and threw the kunai knife outward. It arced around - and embedded itself deep into the front of the missing nin's ankle. Then I used the wire to trip him, pull him over onto his stomach, and start reeling him in.

He struggled, looked around, furious - Tazuna was visible now - the missing nin was going to come after me - shit, I really hadn't thought this through -

Then, of all things, Kakashi-sensei appeared before me. Not in the spiritual, guiding sense. In the literal sense. Like, he leaped down nimbly from a tree and right to the ground before me as if he wasn't dead. He picked the missing nin up by the scruff of the collar, knocked him unconscious over the head, and swung him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes - _casually. _

Apparently, Hatake Kakashi had some serious muscle when it came to corpse-like forms.

Then he zipped at high speeds softly over to Sasuke's fight, picked up the other ninja bodily, and slammed his head against the nearest tree branch - also casually. I winced at the horrible cracking sound it made as the other missing nin fell unconscious. That made me remember the cracking sounds of Kakashi-sensei's bones, and the spikes eating into his bulging eyeballs, and all of a sudden I felt shaky and nauseous and jittery and I realized I might be panicking belatedly. Just a little bit.

I got up off of Naruto, shaking, and I swallowed, my face pale, and I tried to just sit and _breathe _for a minute.

"Kakashi-sensei," I said, "_how -"_

He turned to me, and then he saw my condition. "Sorry about that," he said. "I had to fake my death to hide and assess objectively who the missing nin were after. I used a combination of the replacement spell and an illusion. All there really is over there is a broken log. My genjutsu can be a... little harsh, sometimes."

"No kidding," I gasped. Would he be teaching _me _that?

Sasuke came over, frowning in concern, and rested a hand on my shoulder. "Are you alright?" he asked. I realized it was the first time he had ever voluntarily touched me.

I swallowed back the bile and nodded. "Uh - yeah. A little." Panicking belatedly was better than panicking during the battle. Perhaps I had improved. "How are _you_ alright?" I added incredulously to Sasuke.

A grim smile flickered over his already gaunt dark features. "I've seen worse," he said, and I wondered what he meant. Surely he didn't mean his parents. But perhaps it shouldn't surprise me that someone whose goal in life was murder had already seen it firsthand.

"Kakashi-sensei was impressive, wasn't he?" I asked as Sasuke straightened and we watched Kakashi tie the two unconscious missing nin to a tree.

"Eh." Sasuke seemed a little grumbly. "He was alright." He looked away, gruffly.

I smiled. "You were impressive, too, though," I said knowingly.

"You both were," said Kakashi, looking around to us. "Good job, Sasuke. Good job, Sakura."

"I showed you step one," I said, smiling, remembering our pact.

"That you did. And silent spells, too. Very nice. But remember step two." _Prove I have better hand to hand combat skills. _I nodded."You might not be able to show me on this particular mission, though. This just went out of our parameters."

I frowned. "But -"

Even Sasuke spoke up in protest. "Sensei -"

Kakashi gave us a warning look and looked around to... Naruto. I had almost forgotten he was there, and that wasn't normal for Naruto. I looked around.

Naruto was standing there beside Tazuna, looking very small and lost and scared. He glanced with big eyes from one of his teammates to the others. "Sorry I didn't come help you right away, Naruto," said Kakashi. "I hadn't predicted you being unable to move. Sakura and Sasuke had to come save you instead." His tone was one of frank surprise, and in that moment I felt sorry for Naruto, because that was even worse than disappointment.

Sure enough, as Kakashi-sensei looked away, Naruto closed his eyes and fisted his hands.

Suddenly, Sasuke spoke up. He'd been watching Naruto, like me, but less sympathetically. "Are you hurt, Scaredy-Cat?" he asked suddenly, and Naruto looked up, his eyes snapping open, blue rage filling them.

"Sasuke!" I stood up quickly, frowning. "Don't say that!"

"Why not? Look at him. He lays there underneath you and now he's just standing here feeling _sorry _for himself?" Sasuke gave a contemptuous sneer.

Naruto opened his mouth. "I -!"

"What happened to all your great plans to be Hokage? What, you couldn't even do _anything_?" Sasuke kept on viciously.

I was about to get so angry with Sasuke. But then I looked around to Naruto, and I shut up. Because miraculously, Naruto looked like himself again. He was angry, he was indignant, he was full of energy and life and ready to prove everybody wrong again.

Sasuke was what he'd needed, all along.

Naruto growled and then forced out, "... I swear to you!" A pause. Quieter: "I_ swear _to you. That will _never_ happen _again_." The look on his face was deadly serious.

I'd had that moment, but it had been both less impressive and less dramatic. It was Naruto's peculiar ability to make things impressive when he said them.

Naruto straightened and lifted his chin. "And I'm going to prove it to you. Which means this mission is _still_ on."

Sasuke's expression had retreated back into one of calm. He was satisfied.

Then Kakashi's sarcastic voice broke in. "Well, as much as I appreciate your spirit, Naruto - not so fast." Naruto opened his mouth in protest, hurt or angry, but Kakashi raised his hand. "It's not about you. Tazuna-san." And Kakashi turned deadly, narrowed, cold eyes onto the previously silent Tazuna, who straightened in nervousness and something like preternatural fear. "I need to talk to you."

* * *

><p>"The ninja we fought are -"<p>

"Missing nin," I cut in.

Kakashi nodded. "Ninja who betrayed their village and ran. Outlaws. In this case, from the Hidden Village of the Mist, in Water Country. I have seen them in my Bingo Book. They are known as the Onikyoudai - Demon Brothers. They are of at least Chuunin level. They are well known to keep fighting even at great personal risk, even when it would be wiser to stop. And they were after you, Tazuna-san. Which means someone with the ability to hire ninja really wants you dead." He smiled falsely.

Tazuna swallowed, looking down.

"You did not tell us ninja were after you," Kakashi continued, gaining steam. "You told us bandits. Thugs. Thieves. Gangs. Robbers. Civilian people, in other words, were after you. But not ninja. That would have made this mission a higher rank. A B rank, at the very least. But that would also have made it more expensive. Wouldn't it, Tazuna-san?" Everything about the words was polite, and everything about them was also threatening.

I examined Tazuna's clothes, his shabbiness and his alcohol problem, and for the first time I understood. "Is it normal, for people in the Wave to be this poor, Tazuna-san?" I asked worriedly. I had no experience with civilian fishermen. Perhaps this was common?

But Tazuna sighed, still looking down. "It didn't used to be," he said. "It didn't used to be."

There was a heavy pause. I felt pity for him - sympathy. He just looked so _ashamed _of himself. "We should at least get him home," I said, though I must admit I felt an inward nervousness at the idea of possibly encountering more ninja. "Then we can decide whether we want to face any more dangerous opponents or not." It seemed like a good middle ground.

"You are all Genin," Kakashi reminded us. "That would put you all in abject danger."

"But we can't quit!" Naruto sounded flabbergasted. Sasuke seemed to agree, in a quieter way.

"He's right, you know, in a way," said Tazuna, still looking away. "I look down on him for putting children in danger like he just did, but in reality I'm no better than he is. I'm the reason you're all here."

He saw us as children. A difference, I remembered, in culture and priorities. Like with my parents.

* * *

><p>"<em>Mommy, I want to be a ninja."<em>

_My mother looked down at me, flabbergasted, from where she'd been cutting an onion in the kitchen. (My father spent all day working with his hands and my mother was the cook.) "... What?" was all she could get out after a moment. It was as if her heart had stopped._

"_I want to be important," I said, holding myself up, "like Sasuke-kun and Ino-chan are." (I knew Ino even before the Ninja Academy. My friendship with Hinata would come later; she was a new student introduced to the class a few months into my first Academy year; she was shy, but she was sat next to me and we became friends. But I always, even before deciding to become a ninja, always knew Ino. She was one of my inspirations for wanting to become a ninja. She was so powerful and confident and had such a bright future ahead of her. I also already knew of Sasuke, through Ino's crush on him, and I thought privately that I had never seen someone with such beauty and poise.) But there were other reasons why I wanted to become a ninja. "I want to fight important people and do important things! I want to help make decisions about stuff." Only the ninja could vote in our Hidden Village, only the ninja mattered, which I knew bothered my father because he read the news religiously and frequently complained about his own lack of social power. Some of it must have sunk through to me. That's why I started reading. _

"_But, honey..." My mother folded her skirts and kneeled down to look me in the eye. "Ninja are trained to do horrible things at young ages. Ninja kill people. Ninja die before they even hit sixteen. Why would you want to be a ninja?"_

"_Because I want to be important!" I said again, frowning stubbornly. I was an emotional, short tempered little child, impatient and not fond of repeating myself._

"_W-well..." My mother was unsure what to say, surprised by my fervor. "Sometimes, that's not the biggest thing, honey. Why don't you just take a couple of years at civilian school and see how you like it. Maybe you'll find a boy you'd like to marry. Or," she said, as if trying to placate me, "if you really want to be important, you could become a scholar! I know you like reading. You could live at the capital and do... say, sociological research. You don't know what that is, but you'll learn! You could study people. Doesn't that sound interesting?"_

_I took a page out of Ino's book and tried to think of how she'd respond. I'll never forget what I said._

"_I'd rather beat them up!"_

* * *

><p>Tazuna-san was another example of who I could have become if I hadn't decided to become a ninja. He hated the idea of endangering children, but was forced to do it anyway because he could not defend himself. I was glad, suddenly, of all my training.<p>

It was a ninja's world, after all.

"Someone was after your life, Tazuna-san," I said. "You couldn't help it."

Tazuna looked up at me, his eyes flying open in surprise. "... It's not just me," he forced out after a moment, as if trying to justify himself, or justify my forgiveness. "They're after my family and my country. Everything. But you - you're right, you should just abandon us. Just leave us to die, it's fine." Tazuna looked away pointedly from Kakashi.

"... Thank you, for that dramatic little guilt trip," said Kakashi. "But I've thought about it, and I agree. We'll take you to your home, where we fully expect to get your entire story before deciding whether or not to help you further as you complete your bridge. So be thinking about that."


	4. Chapter 4

4.

We camped out that night in a clearing. The boys got firewood and set up tents; I cooked the food and made a fire. The next day, we made our way through the forests that covered our section of Fire Country and to the coast. That was when the scenery really started to get different, and it felt like we were traveling for the first time, seeing new places. We emerged from the thickets of trees and out onto a black pebble beach. We walked unsteadily over the pebbles to where the edge of the water was lapping gently. I had never seen the ocean before. It came and left the shore in soft sounds. The water was slate grey, slightly foamy, and it looked freezing; a blanket of fog hovered over the sea and obscured the greyish sky, making it hard to look farther into the distance. There was a slight chill in the air, a salty sea breeze playing over my skin.

"Kakashi-sensei," I asked after a moment, "will all the hired missing nin be from Water Country?"

Kakashi thought about this. "Possibly," he offered after a while. "That country is close to here. And it would make sense to stay around this area, water being a Mist nin's element. But you shouldn't assume they'll all be missing nin. Someone could have gone to the official village with a job, just like Tazuna-san came to us."

I noticed Tazuna was listening closely.

We met up there, on the pebble beach, with a man and a rowboat. At least, I thought it was a rowboat until we all climbed in, cramming, the tiny vessel rocking unsteadily, and I saw there was an engine. The man didn't use the engine, and silently, he set out rowing us toward the Wave instead. When I asked him about this, he said, "We don't want to be found. No one's supposed to go in or out of the country anymore."

My expression must have said it all, and even Kakashi-sensei's eyebrows had risen. Just how big was the man after Tazuna, and why was he after him? "Tazuna-san..." Kakashi said uneasily.

"I know," said Tazuna, huskily, solemnly. "My story.

"The man after my life is Gatou, CEO of the Gatou Shipping Corporation. He's a billionaire. Underground, he sells drugs and is in the black market; aboveground, he's a ruthless businessman who specializes in the hostile takeover of other companies. By any definition, he is a very bad man. The Wave was a fishing country, an island, just going along. We didn't have much, but we had enough, and we were okay with that. Then Gatou set his sights on us - an entire country. He's the type of person can do that. He bought out all the other shipping companies in the Wave and pretty soon he was in control of everything: all official travel in or out of the island, all the fishing, everything. He's made people poorer and poorer and increasingly desperate, blocking any way off the island and insisting on special taxes for use of his shipping. He basically controls everything now. What he says goes.

"I began a project of building a huge bridge, from the island to the mainland, so there would be a way out and even a way to do fishing that Gatou couldn't control. He fears this way out, and that's why he's after my life."

"You're not the only worker on the bridge," I realized, "but you're its symbolic leader. He's targeting the psychology of the other islanders. He wants to go for their heart. That's why he's singled you out." I had become enthralled in the tale.

"And why he's hiring particularly vicious ninja," added Sasuke, nodding to me. I felt a thrill of nervousness and foreboding now that I knew who and what were behind the attacks. Suddenly, I was glad I had my teammates with me.

Then Naruto at last tugged on my sleeve. His eyes were the same big as before when he'd frozen up before the Onikyoudai.

"I don't understand," he pleaded.

I thought for a moment. "Remember when little boys used to play kings in the schoolyard?" I asked.

Naruto was still unsure. "Sometimes I saw stuff like that happen..."

I wondered if we were the first friends Naruto had ever had. I also wondered why. He seemed an outgoing enough sort.

"Well, then you know how it works. Usually, one king will become the leader, and he'll lord over the rest. But sometimes another boy comes in, and he takes everybody by surprise and everyone becomes awed by him. So the first lead king loses some of his power. The first king is Gatou, who wants to rule the island. And the new king is Tazuna, who's building a bridge so he won't let him."

Something clicked into place in Naruto's face. "Oh," he said. "Alright. Why couldn't you have just said so in the first place?"

"Congratulations, Sakura, you just did what Iruka-sensei failed to do for years. You successfully explained something to Naruto." Sasuke smirked as Naruto swore him out. But the lightheartedness inside the boat faded quickly.

"I've already told you that if you don't help me, things will just get even worse for my home," Tazuna said. "I will definitely die. My daughter and young grandson might die...

"Will you help me?" he asked at last, and in a way he was also pleading.

"This will turn into an A rank, or at least it has the potential to. But if we all accept the risks..." Kakashi-sensei turned to each of us. I personally was terrified. But somehow, I felt bound to help Tazuna. How could one say no to something like that? My teammates had already nodded, and so, after a long pause, I nodded as well. _I hope I don't prove my parents right, _was my first, absurd thought. "Alright. We'll continue escorting you," Kakashi said to Tazuna, and the man brightened up, at once seeming relieved.

We passed the bridge soon enough, a vast and unfinished pier-like structure, covered in abandoned construction equipment. It was made of a dark, thick wood. (Why Gatou couldn't just hire someone to set the dry part of the bridge on fire, I didn't know, but I was glad all the same that he hadn't thought of it.) There were huge, column like support structures for the bridge leading down into the depths of the ocean, holding the whole thing up. The sheer scope of the project was awe-inspiring.

"That's amazing," said Naruto, quietly, a smile filling his face. I'd thought he might be able to appreciate the drama and rebelliousness of it all.

"It's getting there," said Tazuna, but there was unmistakable pride in his voice.

We all looked quietly up at the bridge as we passed underneath, becoming engulfed in shadows, the quiet sounds of water all around us. We rowed through an archway hewn into the rocky cliff of the island and down a dark tunnel lit dimly by orange lights. We could hear a dripping coming from somewhere. We had been blinded by fog, but all of a sudden, the fog disappeared; the air was clear and we could see the light at the end of the tunnel coming for us. It approached closer and closer...

And then we were through and abruptly, blinking and startled, in the middle of a clear, sunny day. One could row up right to the edge of the city, the first houses of which were placed on wooden stilts before the coastal village faded away into dry land farther back on the island. In the water before the village, those same dark trees grew clear out of the calm, sparkling ocean. The houses and buildings were small, with wooden planks for walls and tin roofs.

Naruto watched everything in excited awe, and even I was fascinated.

Our boatman rowed us right to the edge of the village, where we climbed up onto the wood. My head felt muggy now, a tiredness setting in belatedly now that we had arrived at our destination. My mind, nevertheless, was buzzing with a frantic kind of energy. It was a bizarre sensation, one that I would learn was unique to traveling.

"This is where I leave you, Tazuna," said the boatman seriously. "Stay safe."

Tazuna nodded to his friend. "Thank you."

The man kicked in the motor and sped away.

We took up guard positions around Tazuna, in a formation, and he led us around the edge of the village and into more thickets of trees. It would have been like Konoha, except the trees were different - darker and more twisted - and there was the constant brush and scent of sea air, pervading everything. "I live out beyond the village, right near the coast," said Tazuna in explanation.

So we were walking down another winding trail toward his house, and I started after a while to get a peculiar feeling. I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see someone, jumpy, but there was never anyone there. It took me a while to puzzle out this feeling.

"Does anyone else feel like... we're being watched?" I asked at last.

My teammates straightened and everyone paused.

"It's probably nothing," I said quickly. "I don't mean to alarm anyone..." But everyone was already looking around to the underbrush around us, looking for things out of place, searching for an assailant.

To our surprise, it was Naruto who spotted something first.

"Movement there!" he shouted suddenly, and threw the kunai in that direction. I took a stance and so did the others, coming in tighter around Tazuna, looking in the direction of that bush, waiting and waiting... But nothing came.

"Maybe I hit him," Naruto said at last, with a vicious kind of hopefulness.

"I heard it thunk against the tree. It would have made a different sound if you'd hit someone," said Sasuke.

"Someone should go see what's going on," I said.

"Go right ahead," said Sasuke sarcastically.

"_I'm _not going ahead," I returned indignantly.

"Well neither am I, because it's a stupid idea," said Sasuke.

I was hurt. "Hey -!"

"Yeah, Sasuke, stop being such an asshole," snapped Naruto.

"Oh, for the love of God, _I'll _go look," said Kakashi, rolling his eyes at us, and he moved past us to root around in the bush, searching for something. We saw him pause after a moment.

"Sensei?" I asked worriedly. "Is everything okay?"

"They don't have you at knifepoint, do they?" asked Naruto, sounding oddly eager.

"... Not exactly," said Kakashi, and I couldn't understand the dryness to his voice. "It's not dangerous," he said. "Come see." I couldn't read his expression, but he was staring down at the ground.

We walked over curiously to look. Sitting there, frozen and dazed, shell shocked, was a white snow rabbit with a throwing knife embedded in the tree just above its head. "Naruto, I've heard of rabbits dying of shock from loud _noises. _You could have _killed_ it," I despaired.

Naruto, clearly horror struck, kneeled down and began apologizing to the poor rabbit.

"Why are you all so worried? It's just a rabbit," said Sasuke, confused.

"Rabbit hater," I said, and Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"_Rabbit! Are you gone?! Speak to me!" _Naruto was shouting dramatically, clutching the rabbit in his arms.

"You're all bizarre," said Tazuna fervently.

"But, Kakashi-sensei -" I said as I noticed something, turning around to him. "It's not winter and it's not snowing. Why would the rabbit be white...?"

I trailed off as I saw Kakashi. He had moved away from us to stand straight in the center of the clearing, staring at nothing. His face was serious. He seemed to be listening hard, straining...

"Kakashi-sensei?" I added, softer. Sasuke and Naruto at last turned around as well.

"Hey, Sensei," said Naruto, in a normal, louder tone of voice. He seemed puzzled. "What's up?"

"The rabbit was bred in captivity," said Kakashi at last, tonelessly, not looking at us. "That's why it's white."

"So... I don't understand? Is it somebody's pet?" I asked. Sasuke had tensed up, as if he understood exactly what was going on, but I was still confused.

A humorless smile flitted over Kakashi-sensei's features. "In a manner of speaking," he said.

I had an idea that the rabbit belonged to someone, and whoever it was, they were dangerous. I began to turn around to Naruto. "Naruto, why don't you put the rabbit down -?"

"DUCK!" That was Sensei's voice. I'd never heard him sound that loud before. Too late, I perceived a tell tale whistling in the air. I threw myself to the ground, Naruto threw himself to the ground, Sasuke yanked Tazuna down along with him in a none too polite way, and Kakashi was already down and then up again as soon as the threat had passed.

A huge sword, a massive broadsword in the shape of a butcher's knife, had been bodily tossed outward, spinning, attempting to cleave our entire group's heads from their bodies. We just barely got out of the way in time, the broadsword snatching at the edges of our hair as it flew over and past us. A man followed the sword, which stuck into the farthest tree trunk; he perched atop it, come out of hiding at last. I wondered how long he had been following us.

We walked slowly out into the clearing to meet him, almost as dazed as the rabbit. We were standing in the middle of a flat space of grass with a pond beside us. The man standing on his broadsword across the clearing from us wore camouflage, but his chest was bare, heavily muscled, and - most formidably, perhaps, for a ninja - it was completely unscarred. He, too, wore a cloth face mask, and his ninja marker was that of a missing nin from the Hidden Village of the Mist. I recognized it from the Onikyoudai.

He smirked. "Sorry," he said, shrugging. "Had to give it a shot. No use going through a battle if I could just kill the old man with slow reflexes."

Kakashi's eyes had narrowed. I had never seen him so alert. "Clever," he said after a moment, "using a replacement spell with that trained rabbit when Naruto caught you move. Even I didn't understand for a moment."

The other man paused in something like surprise. At last, hard to read, he smirked again. "I'll take the compliment," he said mockingly.

"I always respect a worthy adversary," Kakashi returned, calm, deceptively polite. "Momochi Zabuza. Jounin level ninja. Exile from the Hidden Village of the Mist. You're in my Bingo Book."

All of a sudden, Naruto charged forward, attempting a reckless attack. I had opened my mouth to shout out, but Kakashi-sensei beat me to it. He immediately put out a hand and held Naruto back, sharply.

"Stay back," said Kakashi, in a tone that was similar to his movements, to the look in his eyes. "You know how I had you fight the Onikyoudai? That's not happening here. You're not fighting this one. Didn't you hear what I said? _Jounin._ The only Jounin any of you are fighting anytime soon is me." Kakashi looked backward at Naruto, almost angry. "So stay back."

After a moment, reluctantly, Naruto took a step back, holding his knife tightly.

* * *

><p>The situation hadn't made sense since Zabuza had stepped into it, and it didn't make sense now. Kakashi lifted his hitai-ate to reveal that his other, usually hidden eye was a blood red color, with three black tomoe circling around in it. He said he couldn't win in this fight without it. Zabuza called Kakashi "CopyCat Kakashi, the Sharingan user." He said Kakashi was also in <em>his<em> Bingo Book.

I tried to puzzle this out in my mind, from my place beside Tazuna.

Kakashi's eye must be a special chakra-enhanced eye, like with Hinata's Byakugan. That must be why the two names shared the same end root. When activated, the silvery, pupil-less Byakugan eyes bulged with chakra. They gave the user a 360 degree field of X-ray vision. The Sharingan couldn't have done the same thing, but it must be similar. Like with Hinata, it must run in Kakashi's family, and it must do something special, give the user some sort of strange power. But why did he only have one? Hinata had two. And what did Zabuza mean by "copycat"? What did the Sharingan do, exactly? Why did its power make Kakashi-sensei so formidable an opponent? Now was hardly the time to ask.

"Team Seven," said Kakashi, in a tight order, "form the swastika formation around Tazuna. Guard him, and _stay out of the fight."_

"What about teamwork?" Sasuke was, to my surprise, the one who dared to ask.

"Not interfering in my battle is your teamwork," said Kakashi.

"But what -? And what's with your eye -?" Naruto began. _Not the time!_ I pulled him aside and the three of us formed around Tazuna. From there, we muttered to each other, without disturbing the fight.

"Zabuza is the best the Hidden Village of the Mist, Kiri, had to offer," I said. "That's why we can't fight. Kakashi's eye is a special hereditary thing enhanced by chakra."

"Hereditary -?"

"Inherited," I said. "Some ninja clans have special chakra abilities, passed down through the generations. They're called bloodline limits." (Ino had something similar, too. It wasn't a bloodline ability, exactly, but her clan history made her predetermined to do particularly well at her family's mind control spells. Most of the advantages my friends had over me went back to their bloodlines.)

"So... what does the Sharingan eye _do_?" Naruto asked.

To my surprise, Sasuke answered. "It can look at an opponent's technique, break it down, and send that information back to the user's muscles to have them be able to perform the same technique. It copies."

"So the only limitations would be if the opponent was too much stronger or faster or had better chakra abilities, or if the technique was hereditary and only certain people would be able to do it," I analyzed thoughtfully. "But Sasuke, how did you know all tha -?"

"Because you're right," said Sasuke, his voice hard, his eyes never off Kakashi. "The Sharingan does run in someone's family. It runs in mine."

My eyes flew open in surprise. "So how does Kakashi...?" I began. Kakashi was a Hatake. Not an Uchiha.

"Exactly," said Sasuke. "I would surmise that his mother must have been an Uchiha. But I don't know for sure." He sounded frustrated.

"Just ask him," Naruto suggested.

"Naruto," I said in exasperation, "do you not understand the tone right now?"

As we'd talked, Kakashi and Zabuza had traded barbs. Then, suddenly, Zabuza leaped off his sword and sheathed it at his back. He jumped from there and directly onto the water in the pond, standing on top of it, like some great mythic religious figure, chakra emanating outward from his feet to keep him standing on an unstable surface. At this, my team and I paused, staring in wonder. Then Zabuza made a hand seal and did a water elemental ninjutsu spell to make fog appear as if by magic in the very air around us, cold and cloying, hemming us in, until we couldn't see more than a few inches in front of us, could barely see Kakashi-sensei. As for Zabuza, he had completely disappeared.

That was when Kakashi-sensei filled us in, from where he was standing guard in front of our group, waiting calmly for an attack. He said that before he turned traitor, Momochi Zabuza was a member of the Kiri's ANBU - ANBU being any Hidden Village's black ops corps. Zabuza was an assassin known for his "silent killing" techniques. Most commonly, he would sneak up silently on the person through his self-created mist and slit their throat, possibly before the victim even knew what was happening.

"It is possible that you will be dead before you realize it," said Kakashi calmly. "And I cannot use my eye to its fullest potential in these mists. So don't let your guard down."

I was not exactly reassured. Swallowing, I took a stronger stance at my place beside Tazuna, taking out a kunai and holding it in front of me. I tried to keep my hands from shaking. It was hard.

"But on the plus side," Kakashi said after a moment, "if he catches you, you're only going to die." I would have thought he was kidding, but it didn't fit his tone or the moment.

Something about the wording, then, struck me as odd. "What else would happen to us if we were caught by the enemy...?" I asked, and as I spoke, my eyes widened. I'd realized the answer to my own question.

Kakashi was saying Zabuza was not prone to torture or rape.

This, strangely, just shook me _more. _It wasn't long before the mist gradually began to thicken and thicken, until we couldn't even see Kakashi anymore, though he was standing just a few feet in front of us. Then a voice began, Zabuza's voice; in a fit of ventriloquism, it echoed through the mists on all sides of us, each of us only able to see ourselves, feeling alone and isolated and cold, the voice coming from everywhere. Its heavy killing presence everywhere. Slowly, cruelly, it began listing all the points of vulnerability on the human body, cataloguing ways we could be killed, saying Zabuza could see all of us and could strike at any time.

I realized that I was dealing with someone who was insane. And that was a terrifying realization.

_Stop shaking, _I told myself. _Stop shaking. _But I couldn't.

Then Kakashi released his chakra out into the air around him, and suddenly the mists around our little huddle cleared a little. We could see him again. I immediately relaxed under the incredible chakra presence of Kakashi-sensei. It was heavy, but also oddly comforting. That strong person was fighting _for us. _I almost smiled at his straightened back.

Then I heard some gasping over to my left and I looked around - my eyes widened.

Sasuke clearly didn't feel the same way about the heavy chakra presence. It had just doubled all the stress put on him, and as Naruto'd had his breaking point, as I'd had mine, Sasuke at last had his breaking point too, and he had it in spectacular fashion. His breathing was erratic, sweat was forming on his brow, his face was pale. Then, in a sudden mad fit, he grabbed his knife and stabbed it toward his stomach region, his expression desperate.

Gasping, I reached over and grabbed his wrist. "Sasuke -!" I hissed. "Snap out of it!"

"But - but I _can't _- my life - it's not my own anymore - I can't stay here and wait to die - I can't - I _can't -"_

His voice didn't even sound like his own; his eyes were big and hysterical as they stared at me. I realized I'd never heard Sasuke sound afraid before. He was gibbering.

I had read somewhere, once, that the most talented are just the ones who push themselves the hardest, and are in reality the ones with the most delicate psychological balance. I'd never really believed it until now.

"What the _fuck -_?" Naruto, who had a gift for putting it like it is, was saying. He clearly had no idea how to help his friend, and his helplessness made _me _feel helpless, and damnit this wasn't working!

"Sasuke," I said firmly, "you can't kill yourself. Kakashi-sensei's going to save us. You're in the middle of a battle. If you die, Tazuna-san will be left vulnerable." Not sure what else to say, I ended, "Man up, you have a job to do." Then, frowning, I turned back away and got in my stance again.

But Sasuke's breathing had eased. After a moment, shakily, he nodded and seemed to regain his composure, retaking his own stance.

"Kakashi-sensei's going to save you?" Zabuza's voice asked after a moment, mockingly. "Such high expectations of your Sensei..."

It was not a promising start.

* * *

><p>Thus began a battle of wits. Zabuza leaped suddenly into the middle of our formation, only for Kakashi to attack him and uncover him to be a Water Bunshin, only for another Zabuza to attack and uncover Kakashi to be a Water Bunshin, and so it went, back and forth, Bunshin attacking Bunshin. I was just barely keeping up. There were hundreds of little movements going on within the mists behind the scenes that I wasn't even aware of, as the two Jounin ran around, hidden from us and each other, put up facades to trick each other. I hadn't even been aware of when they'd both moved away to watch our group. It must have been when we couldn't see Kakashi.<p>

Finally, it seemed we'd hit upon the real them, because they turned to kenjutsu and taijutsu, rather than tricks. Zabuza fought with his sword against Kakashi's hand to hand combat. Kakashi just kept dodging and dodging backward, sometimes with the help of small weapons and pieces of equipment to slow Zabuza down, until Kakashi jumped backward and right into the pond. It couldn't have been a mistake and must have been intentional. But... wasn't water Zabuza's element?

Sure enough, Zabuza jumped on top of the water and created a spell, a bubble of water with air inside it trapping Kakashi completely, leaving him unable to get out. Suddenly, we were vulnerable, and the only weakness I could see was that Zabuza had to use one of his arms and hands to hold the Hydro Prison Spell in place and the other to make one handed hand seals. Zabuza turned to us, and promised to kill us.

He created some Mizu Bunshin, coming hulking up out of the water to attack us, only a fraction of Zabuza's original power but still fearsome. As he made them, he talked. He went on and on about the superiority of his power because it didn't come from copies, and he insulted us and told us we were little children acting like ninja. "You don't seem to be listening," he said, turning his shark-like dark eyes on me, noticing my seeming contempt. "Let me tell you a story."

"_The Hidden Village of the Mist was a vicious place. Vicious, and full of poverty. Its Ninja Academy was an intensive boarding school. In it, young kids were paired off from the get go. The partners had to sleep together and eat from the same plate, train together and work together. The graduation ended with the two children, by now best friends, forced to fight it out to the death against each other. One would die, and the other would become a ninja. _

"_**That's **__a ninja. One who can say they've been through a life or death situation, murdered, and thus survived. You know how they found me? Amid the massacred ruins of a graduating class. I'd killed the entire class. And it wasn't even mine. I was nine. _

"_Demon. That's what they began calling me. The Demon of the Mist. They changed the whole graduation process just for me, eliminating the struggle between best friends._

"_But what can I say? It just sounded like fun. Cutting my way through all those people. All that blood. I wanted to be a good ninja, and that's what a good ninja is._

"_You three? I doubt you've ever even seriously injured someone. You're not ninja. And I'm going to prove it to you by killing you."_

There was a quiet, hidden kind of sadism to his voice.

Then he and the trapped Kakashi-sensei disappeared back into the mists again. We paused, tense, waiting, waiting...

And at last, the Mizu Bunshin attacked, whirling out from their place within the mists. There was one for each of us, and then I didn't have any time to focus on anyone's fight but my own. The Zabuza before me, wholly intimidating, moved fast, blew past my taijutsu guard, and slammed into me with great force, lifting me off my feet. I was slammed to the ground; I was pinned down by the legs, by the neck, and also by the arm that was holding my kunai knife. I couldn't _breathe..._

But somehow, my body told me what to do. It had gotten used to being beat around by Sasuke. I used my free hand to grab a handful of dirt and throw it into his eyes, clawing across his face. His grip on my neck slackened for a second. He flinched backward, more annoyed than anything, but that gave me the chance to angle the kunai knife and throw it to my other hand, so that I caught it on the flat sides of the blade. I turned the knife right around in my free hand and I stabbed him in the knee, so that his leg slackened momentarily, water coming out of it, and I could get my leg out from underneath him and give him a hard knee right in the genitals.

I don't care how tough a ninja you are. Getting kicked in your special place by a girl hurts.

He doubled over reflexively, his eyes widening, a sound involuntarily escaping from him. I used my newly freed arm and leg to give myself purchase and slide out from underneath him, straightening his arm holding mine sideways at an odd angle. Now up on my knees, I did as I was taught; I hit over his elbow and under. He was just so ripped that it didn't break the joint, but it did allow me to free my other arm from his grip and stand up completely.

He looked up just in time for me to slam a particularly vicious and angry palm heel right into his nose, and the Bunshin at last dissolved into water.

I looked up, taking in a sharp breath, pushing my bangs back from my eyes, my bun in disarray. The mist had faded. Zabuza, curious, had wanted to see what his fights had come to, and Kakashi from within his sphere could see as well. I had defeated my Bunshin, and so had Sasuke, though Sasuke was bleeding - they were weak enough that we had managed to overcome them. They weren't Zabuza.

But Naruto, predictably perhaps, was having problems.

He was bruised and beaten; Zabuza had taken his hitai-ate away from him and stomped it underneath his foot, and he kept punching Naruto this way and that, smirking in cruel amusement as Naruto rushed back up to meet him every time, his taijutsu clumsy and untrained. "Naruto!" I called out, and Sasuke even made a step forward to go help him, but Naruto's voice rang out.

"No!" he called fiercely from where he was lying on the ground. "Don't help me!"

We watched in awe and worry as he shot himself forward again, skidding on his stomach on the ground, and he got kicked away by the head in a spurt of blood. That was it. I was going to help him whether he liked it or not! I ran over to him... only to find him prone on his back, bloody lipped and triumphant.

The hitai-ate was back in his hand. He'd made Zabuza lift his foot to kick him.

Naruto grinned up at me.

"... I... I'm so sorry, Naruto," was the first thing I said. "I should have made you train with Sasuke-kun along with me, I should have done more to help you -"

Naruto blinked up at me in surprise. Then he smiled, gentler. "Don't worry about it," he said. "It's me that slacked off. Not you."

Sasuke's terse voice broke in, and Naruto scowled amusingly. "Not to break up the moment or anything," said Sasuke, standing straight and watching the whole scene with narrowed eyes, "but we do still have a situation."

We looked up to find Kakashi along with both Zabuza and his Mizu Bunshin watching us - Zabuza curiously. Reassessing.

"Well," Kakashi broke in dryly, "I suppose it would be too much to ask for at this point for Zabuza-san to just let my little Genin run away."

* * *

><p>"Zabuza would never let us run away," said Sasuke. "Even if we ran away now, he would come after us again later and Kakashi-sensei wouldn't be there. Kakashi knows that."<p>

We were huddled, the three of us, near Tazuna, trying to strategize a plan. I looked over at Kakashi. Unseen by Zabuza, I saw him point. _Run, _I saw him mouth through his face mask.

"Are you sure he knows that?" I asked, wincing.

"If he doesn't, he should," said Sasuke firmly.

"But shouldn't we ask Tazuna which way he'd rather die?" Naruto asked dryly; maybe Kakashi-sensei was rubbing off.

"We have to save Kakashi," said Sasuke.

"But we should _ask_ our client whether he wants to die now or later," said Naruto pointedly.

"He's right, you know," I added. "Tazuna-san." I looked up at him as sweetly as I could. "Is it okay if we go beat that guy?" I pointed.

"I'm the reason you're in this whole mess," said Tazuna. "Don't let me stop you." He was as bewildered as I believed my father might have been. He had the face of a man who knew he was out of his depth. Maybe it was better that way.

"See? Now, I have a plan," said Naruto, looking around to us.

"It shouldn't be hard to get through the Bunshin, at least," I said. "We've done it before. Naruto just has to stay back -"

"No, I have to go in there," said Naruto. "And not for ego reasons. I mean... I really do. Really really. But actually..." Naruto looked over at me consideringly and I thought maybe I shouldn't have spoken up at all.

* * *

><p>"Well?" Zabuza began expectantly as we turned back to him. "Have you decided?" It was the Bunshin speaking, a cruel smirk playing across his face. He seemed amused by our attempts, more than anything. At least he wasn't telling us we weren't ninja anymore.<p>

In response, Naruto made the hand seal and shouted, "KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!" He blitzed Zabuza with a crowd of Kage Bunshin, all coming at him at once, and my job was to hide within the mass next to the real Naruto - who grabbed my hand - and then we were running amid a whole crowd of shouting Narutos straight at a water-based copy of a homicidal man. And I was like, _How did my life get to this place?_

But I was also really nervous and then it was show time, so I didn't have very long to dwell on it.

Half the Narutos got around Zabuza's Bunshin, pushing him face-first toward me; the other half lifted me up into the air as I arced in a kick toward Zabuza's face. (Being a girl, I was lighter and more agile than my teammates.) Zabuza grabbed me by the leg and flung me away at the same time as he pushed all the Narutos away. "Pathetic," he spat. All of us were left skidding across the ground on our asses, which fucking burned by the way, and I was next to the real Naruto again, who was falling right behind a Kage Bunshin.

Naruto made the hand seal and whispered, "Henge," the first time he'd ever whispered a technique - I really would have to teach him about silent spells later - and he turned into a fuuma shuriken. I made a genjutsu, silently, another of the basic ones we'd been offered at the Academy. This one made something unnoticeable - easy to miss. I used it on Naruto as the fuuma shuriken, tapping it/him softly on my way by. I was just at the right angle to see the Naruto Kage Bunshin slip the transformed fuuma shuriken into his pack. All the other Naruto Kage Bunshin let themselves disperse, so that the copy remaining looked like the real one.

Naruto really did come up with good ideas. Who'd known having a prankster on the team would come as such a bonus?

"Fine!" said Naruto the Copy, acting as if in desperation. I tried to look suitably hurt and worried, dainty, curled up there on the ground behind him. (In my mind, I was concentrating on not letting the genjutsu go until the exact right moment.) "Let's try this!"

And he took out and tossed the fuuma shuriken to Sasuke, who took it and added his own regular fuuma shuriken in one smooth, flawless move only he would have been able to pull off. He threw them, in the shadow shuriken technique, with precision - straight past the Zabuza Bunshin and toward the real one. Zabuza jumped over and dodged the first shuriken easily without ever breaking his Hydro Prison. But of course, he couldn't see the second "shuriken" coming at him after the shadow of the first. I waited, and waited - NOW!

I released the genjutsu, and then there was another fuuma shuriken about two seconds away from Zabuza's midsection. His eyes widened. "What the fu -?!" He bent over backward, but Naruto transformed while right above Zabuza and left a deep cut with his kunai knife across Zabuza's mid section. Then, while Zabuza was crying out in pain, Naruto flew past Zabuza and aimed the kunai knife straight at Zabuza's arm, letting it fly.

Zabuza was forced to release the Hydro Prison to avoid the kunai taking out his arm, and Kakashi landed on top of the water nimbly on his feet, freed once more. The kunai, meanwhile, flung itself straight into the Zabuza Mizu Bunshin, who dispersed.

Plan successful.

Zabuza had gone for his sword and was going straight for Naruto in fury, bleeding heavily, so quickly I made a hand seal again and Naruto disappeared from Zabuza's view. I figured the notice-me-not wouldn't be strong enough, so I did the invisibility one.

Zabuza blinked and stopped in shock as Naruto disappeared. Then he realized what was going on. He released a pulse of chakra and the genjutsu broke, but by that time Kakashi had sped in front of Naruto, shielding the by-now-swimming boy. Zabuza looked around...

He saw me, lying all the way across the shore as the Naruto Kage Bunshin dispersed beside me. Zabuza's face twisted into a snarl, and even all that distance away I felt alone and vulnerable. "_You little bitch -!"_

Then Kakashi aimed a kunai at Zabuza's neck, Zabuza blocked with the broad side of his sword, Zabuza whirled back around again, and the two were facing each other.

"Not so fast," said Kakashi. "_I'm _your opponent. And I can tell you, the same trick won't work on me twice."

Sasuke hurried over to me and he even helped me to my feet, a sign of respect he usually only showed me after spars. We made a two person formation in front of Tazuna together, and after a moment, I waved to Naruto to try to swim around behind Kakashi and make it back to shore. Naruto's eyes moved around quickly, assessing the situation, and then he started the trek back to shore.

"Well. I guess I lost myself temporarily. I let go of the Hydro Prison technique," said Zabuza, feigning carelessness but breathing heavily with blood all down his front, his eyes frantic and paranoid.

"No, you didn't 'lose yourself temporarily'," said Kakashi. "You were _forced _to let it go. By _my _ninja. And by the looks of it, they even managed to injure you." Kakashi let his eyes go slowly down and up Zabuza's frame before coming to rest back on his face with deadly seriousness. There was anger, hidden in there too.

"Good job, team," he said. "I shouldn't have told you to run. It appears you can handle yourselves."

And abruptly, I felt pretty damn proud of myself.

* * *

><p>The last part of the fight between Zabuza and Kakashi was even more puzzling than the rest of it. I realized what I was seeing must be the Sharingan in action. By the time Naruto came up to join our formation, Zabuza was pretty frazzled by it.<p>

Kakashi kept doing Zabuza's movements at exactly the same time Zabuza did them. By the time Zabuza had finished a ninjutsu spell, so had Kakashi. They kept canceling out each other's attacks because each was an equal copy of the other. Their chakra skills appeared to be matched. In one memorable case, they made two enormous copies of elemental water dragons crash against each other, throwing water all over the shoreline and all over us. The water dragons canceled each other out.

They fought against each other, sword against taijutsu and kunai knives, a fascinating whirl of expert movement, but Kakashi was always exactly where Zabuza was going to be, blocking him.

Then Kakashi moved on to doing things even faster than Zabuza did them. And this part, I didn't understand at all. It appeared to be a sort of hypnosis - the eye appeared to be suggesting things to Zabuza even before he'd thought of doing them. That was the only thing I could think of, because Zabuza's eyes never left that Sharingan anymore, wide and panicked. Zabuza would try ninjutsu spells, and Kakashi would complete the spell before Zabuza, using the attack against him while he was unprepared. Kakashi had just copied, just knew, that many spells. He appeared to be suggesting likely ones to Zabuza's mind.

The Sharingan, I realized, was terrifying. It had allowed Kakashi to move through the mists, and that was weakened. Look at what it was helping him do now.

Naruto seemed confused, but I wasn't about to enlighten him. Zabuza seemingly had no idea what was going on and I couldn't risk him overhearing. Sasuke, of course, understood everything and was watching closely.

At last, Zabuza got angry and panicky, and that was when Kakashi went for the proverbial jugular. He finished Zabuza's technique before Zabuza could and pinned him up against a tree in a flurry of water and several choicely thrown kunai knives. And just as I thought I was about to watch my Sensei murder someone - I couldn't imagine a mere knocking unconscious stopping someone like Zabuza - something completely surprising happened.

Kakashi had just raised his knife over Zabuza.

"Can you see the future?" Zabuza had asked in awe and horror, looking upward.

"Yeah," said Kakashi in a typically dry, deflective way. "You're going to die."

And then two thin, sharp, weaponized needles came arcing down out of a place in the surrounding underbrush and pierced Zabuza through the neck. He slackened, paling, eyes glassy - dead instantly. And from out of the underbrush stepped a small, slim, dark-haired teenager in a Kiri ANBU mask.

"Wow, you're right," said the ANBU pleasantly, lowering his hand. "He's dead."

Kakashi checked Zabuza's pulse just to confirm, but it really was obvious to anyone who was looking that he was dead.

"Thank you," said the ANBU, bowing. "I was looking for a chance to kill Zabuza for quite some time. Your recklessness and drama afforded me the perfect opportunity." There was a hint of chill to his soft voice, a tight sort of anger inherent in it. But it was impossible to read anything through that mask. It was why ANBU wore them.

"You mean, our competency in weakening the target afforded you the perfect opportunity," said Kakashi warningly, his eyes narrowed, in a way not unlike that in which he just spoken to Zabuza. "You, I would guess, must be a hunter nin." He stood from beside Zabuza's corpse, his eyes never leaving the intruder.

"What does that mean?" Naruto asked, and for some reason he seemed almost as aggressive and angry as the intruder.

"A hunter nin is an ANBU who hunts down missing nin to guard the secrets of their village. They usually move in groups," I said. "That's one of those lectures you skipped at the Academy."

The dry joke seemed to fall on deaf ears. Naruto was still glaring, disbelieving, up at the hunter nin. "Who the hell _are _you?" he asked at last.

"Naruto, what do you mean -? Why are you upset?" I asked, bewildered. Insulting a hunter nin was not exactly the smartest idea.

"Naruto, calm down, he's not an enemy," Kakashi added.

"I _know _that! That's not what I meant! He - he made us look like idiots! He just made all our effort meaningless! And he's not even that much older than _me_!" Naruto's face was twisted with emotion; he made a sharp hand gesture at himself.

"But he _is _older, Naruto," I said, worried. "And he said it himself. So did Kakashi-sensei. Without us, he'd never have had that opening. What's the difference, really, in who finished the job? Zabuza's dead. Let it go."

Naruto looked over at me pleadingly, weaker for a moment. "I just... I felt so _good _about my abilities for the first time," he said tiredly.

"... I can understand your disbelief, Naruto," said Kakashi. "But there are ninja in this world who are younger than you, and stronger than me."

"That's sick," I said, and my teammates looked over at me. "What?" I said. "It is. No child should have to kill people." Maybe I was still a civilian, in some ways.

At last, the hunter nin spoke. "The girl makes sense," he said, stiffly. "It is... distasteful, that such things exist. And she is correct. As... questionable, as some of your decisions to needlessly mutilate the opponent were... you did well. I would not have seen that opening had you not fought Zabuza successfully.

"For Genin, you are... impressive."

I smiled and nudged Naruto, who slowly faded from 'angry' to 'slightly suspicious.'

"And on that note, this should be a lesson to you," Kakashi added. "In battle, choices can happen in the blink of an eye. Never expect things to go in a predictable, linear fashion."

Sasuke and I nodded, and after a moment, Naruto did as well.

Kakashi turned to the hunter nin. "I would assume you want to destroy the body," he guessed sharply.

"Yes." The hunter nin leaped down and hefted the body over his shoulder with surprising carefulness, as if trying not to hurt the open chest wound. "I must take this body away. It is full of secrets."

The hunter nin leaped away silently and in seconds there was no one in the clearing but Team Seven and Tazuna-san.

I frowned thoughtfully. "I thought I remembered from the extra reading that hunter nin always burn their bodies on the spot, to better preserve secrets."

Kakashi was also looking after the hunter nin fixedly. "They do," he said.

And on that alarming note, and with the same fixed expression, he fell over onto his face and fainted.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto called out, and even Sasuke's eyes had widened. We hurried over to the form and rolled it carefully over onto its back.

"Was he injured in the battle?" Tazuna asked with morbid fascination. What must he think of all of this?

I felt up and down the form. "He's not bleeding, nothing's sticking out from any weird places." I checked breathing and pulse. "Breathing and pulse normal." I checked his forehead. "No fever."

"Chakra exhaustion," said Sasuke softly, his expression falling back into more of its normal reserve. "Sharingan can do that. It pulls too much chakra away from the body and drains it."

"Yes, that must be it," I said, frowning in concern. "His eyes are closed. That means he's not using the eye anymore, correct?" Sasuke nodded. "We have to get him resting at Tazuna's house."

Sasuke and Naruto each took one of Kakashi's arms and they helped heave the limp body up between them. I turned to Tazuna.

"Tazuna-san," I said, "please lead us to your home."

* * *

><p>Tazuna's house was a simple but well crafted abode set far back into the trees, right up next to the water in a way that seemed almost dangerous. It was a notch better than the buildings we'd seen in town, as perhaps one might expect from a construction manager; it even had a balcony looking out over everything on the second floor. In the early evening, we made it to the door and Tazuna knocked heavily. We were let inside by a young dark haired woman, tightly put together and dignified, with lines in her face. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw what her father had dragged in behind him.<p>

"Tsunami," said Tazuna, "these are the ninja I told you about. They've already fended off two assassination attempts after learning how I tricked them. I think they deserve to stay with us for the time being."

So, no matter how much she didn't necessarily seem to like it, Tsunami was all business about getting Kakashi into a spare room, which she furnished with a pallet, blankets, and pillows. Kakashi-sensei was laid down and left in the dark, allowed to sleep. Soon, if he didn't wake up, he would have to be fed nutrition and fluids intravenously, but with Gatou after us that horrible possibility didn't bear thinking about.

In the other spare room, Tazuna helped Tsunami divide the room in half with a partition. Sasuke and Naruto and their clothes and supplies got one half; I was lucky enough, as the only girl, to get a full half of the room to myself. (And I only mean that slightly sarcastically.) Food would be provided by Tsunami and Tazuna.

We were all allowed to put down our things in our room and then gather around the table in the kitchen to have dinner, real home-cooked food for once, seafood featuring heavily in the menu. The table was one set low to the ground, in traditional style, and the room around it was almost as bare as the spare rooms had been. Save for a few pictures up on the walls, the feel of the whole place was very economical, the mark of people who lived in a culture that could not afford to spend a lot of money on decorative art. It was all scrubbed spotlessly clean, which had to be Tsunami's doing; she seemed rather proud.

The food was delicious. Tazuna's mysterious grandson did not appear; I saw a shy little dark-haired form half hiding in the doorway for a moment, then Tsunami brought him a plate full of food and the form disappeared.

"Thank you for keeping us here," I said to Tsunami later on in the meal. She was straight-backed and hard to read from her place at the table. "I know it costs extra money."

"Don't worry about it! You've saved my life, you're welcome here!" said Tazuna, more cheerful and in his element now that he was at home, eating, and relatively safe.

But I kept looking at Tsunami. "... Part of the reason guard escorts are so cheap is because half the cost comes from keeping the guards at your house for a week," said Tsunami at last, a humorless smile flickering across her features. "We understood this when we put in the request."

That was all she would say on the subject.

After dinner, we each took our turns in the family's one bath. I was last, because I knew how long I would take. (Warm baths were almost as good after getting beat around as chocolate was for period cramps.) I nearly moaned as I sunk down into the warm water and it reached my bruised skin and strained muscles. I lay back and just let myself relax, unwind completely for the first time since this mission had started. The steam filled the bathroom and floated up before my vision, and I just sat there for a long time, half asleep.

It was the closest I could probably get here to an onsen.

* * *

><p>The next morning, Tsunami walked into Kakashi-sensei's room. A minute later, she poked her head out. "He's awake," she said. Then she scowled. "And he's trying to move around a lot when he knows he's not well."<p>

All three of us got up and hurried into the room, Tazuna right behind us. Sure enough, there was Kakashi-sensei, lying still but with his eyes open. He looked over at us with effort when we came into the room, the blankets draped across his thin frame. It was strange, seeing him so human. The room smelled like him, not necessarily in the romantic way, but in the sense of how a normal human being would smell if he hadn't bathed for a couple of days. Kakashi-sensei had always seemed remote and implacable before; not so now.

This, I would learn, is how it always is with healing.

"Sensei, how hurt are you?" I asked as we kneeled down by his bedside.

Kakashi shook his head. "I'll probably... not be able to move around well for about a week," he said, slower than usual. "My standing will be shaky... I'll probably need crutches... I'll go through periods where I can't eat anything and periods where I want to eat everything..." He winced. "Chakra exhaustion is... not a fun disorder."

"But it happens to all people when they use the Sharingan too much?" I asked.

"Every single one," he confirmed.

So that was the price for having a high-powered hereditary technique.

I noticed, again, that Sasuke was listening closely.

"Sensei, I wanted to ask something else..." I added. Seeing Sasuke had made me remember. "How do you have the Sharingan? Sasuke said it runs in_ his_ family. And why do you only have one?"

Kakashi paused for a moment, his face unreadable. Sasuke had leaned forward slightly, as if to hear harder. "... I think I deserve to know," Sasuke said formally after a moment, stiffly, but his eyes were intent.

Kakashi sighed then. "Probably," he said. "Remember those friends I told you about, on the memorial stone?" His eyes were sad. "One of them died in the aftermath of a battle, there on the ground in front of me. He was an Uchiha. I had recently lost an eye during a fight, and he had a healer cut out his own Sharingan eye and implant it in my head as a parting gift." Our eyes had widened. "This ninja stuff," Kakashi sighed tiredly, "it's no joke. People get injured. People die. That's what happens. But... it was from him that I learned that people who break the rules may be trash, but people who don't help their friends are worse than trash. He died trying to save a friend, even though ninja logic told him he should have left her behind."

Kakashi smiled, bittersweetly. "That's amazing," said Naruto in awe. "He sounds incredible..."

We all looked at Sasuke for a moment. "It makes sense," he said at last, almost awkwardly, "to want a part of yourself to live on through your friend."

Kakashi seemed amused. "You're much more forgiving than the head and some council members of your clan were. They were scandalized a Sharingan had been given to someone on the outside."

"I... disagree with their anger," said Sasuke at last, frowning. "But it's important for me to know that the Sharingan can make someone this sick."

"So what are we going to do until you get better?" Naruto was the one to ask.

"What do you mean? He defeated such a strong ninja... we should be okay for a while," said Tazuna, frowning worriedly.

"Kakashi-sensei, I want to know something else," I said. "Why was the hunter nin alone, instead of in a group like they normally would be? Also, you told me that most hunter nin destroy a corpse on the spot. So why did that hunter nin take Zabuza's away?"

"Why indeed...?" Kakashi murmured, staring up at the ceiling.

"Sorry," I said, embarrassed, after a moment. "I know that's not a very important question. I was just -"

"No, you're right," said Kakashi. "That_ is_ an important question. That is, in fact, _the _important question."

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked in confusion.

"The standard hunter nin would have been surrounded by his fellows. He would have cut off Zabuza's head and burned the rest of the body in front of us. This singular hunter nin took the body away. We have no way of knowing what he did with it. He also did not kill Zabuza with a kunai, shuriken, or sword. He used senbon - long needles, typically undeadly, usually used in acupuncture to hit specific pressure points by the medically aware," Kakashi listed off.

My mind was spinning. _Pressure points?_ "You're not really saying -" I began in horror.

But Sasuke had nodded. "Zabuza's alive," he said seriously, understanding. "The hunter nin uniform was a facade. One of his fellows helped him by putting him in a near death state."

"That would explain why the hunter nin seemed so angry!" I realized. "He kept talking about how we'd mutilated Zabuza's body. He was angry about the scar on his mid section."

"Wait, what?" Naruto was looking hurriedly from one to the other. "But Kakashi-sensei checked his pulse! Zabuza was dead!"

"But if a needle hit exactly the right pressure point, he would only _look_ dead," I said. "And then he'd wake up again after a while, perfectly fine. In fact... if he weren't dead, Zabuza would have woken up by now." I frowned worriedly.

"Zabuza's at least as physically ruined as I am," said Kakashi. "We probably won't have to worry about him for at least another week."

"But, isn't this all a little presumptuous?" Tazuna was the one to ask. "Assuming someone is still alive based on little facts like that?"

"Ninja stay alive by being cautious," said Kakashi shortly, and I got the feeling he'd have come up with a more creative answer if he wasn't so exhausted.

I remembered the hunter nin - how protective he had been of Zabuza, how careful with his body. "You don't think we'll have to worry about the fake hunter nin, do you?" I asked.

"I doubt it," said Kakashi. "He hid and watched, rather than attacked. It might even have been _his_ rabbit. If his job was not to attack then, I don't see why it would be now. He may be more of an assistant. The logical thing for him will be to wait for Zabuza to wake up. Besides, Zabuza isn't the type to like someone infringing on prey he sees as _his_."

"So - we'll get another chance to fight Zabuza and kill him," said Naruto, with a vicious kind of eagerness.

"Another chance to prove ourselves," Sasuke added, in something like satisfaction. "I take it we'll be training, in the time leading up to the next confrontation?" He said it like he expected it.

Was I the only one who wasn't enthused at the prospect of fighting Zabuza again? But if it would mean more training... "What will be doing?" I asked at last.

Kakashi, strangely, almost laughed. "Climbing trees," he said.

"... Great," I responded, staring at him. "So the next time Zabuza attacks us, we can climb a tree."

Kakashi really did laugh this time, and the others in the room hid smiles. "Well, it's a type of tree climbing that improves chakra endurance and control. At the end of the training, you all should be able to augment your muscles with chakra in various ways to make yourselves faster or stronger..."

"Or more stable on unstable surfaces," I said, my eyes lighting up in realization. "Kakashi-sensei, will you teach us how to walk on water?"

"Oh, I don't think you'll get that far in a week. You should stick with walls and tree trunks first, things that won't move. But I'll tell you what," he said when I seemed disappointed. "If you can get tree climbing down before the end of the week, I'll teach you water walking."

There was something else I wanted to practice as well. I had accidentally done a one-handed seal during the battle with the Onikyoudai, and I had seen Zabuza do one-handed seals while he had Kakashi in the Hydro Prison. I wanted to see if I could replicate the process and do a one-handed, silent spell.

"So we'll just be learning all kinds of awesome things!" said Naruto excitedly.

"That is the plan," said Kakashi, smiling slightly.

Then a little boy's voice echoed behind us. It said, "You're all going to die."

This sounds like the start from some kind of horror movie. In reality, we turned around and it was just Tazuna's grandson standing there behind us, looking sullen and annoyed. "Thanks for that," said Kakashi in surprise after a moment.

"It's true," said the boy. "No one can win against Gatou. You're all going to die." He was, apparently, a firm pessimist.

"Hey! What did you say?!" Naruto began to stand up in fury and I pulled him back down.

"Go easy on him, Naruto," I muttered. "He probably doesn't remember a time before Gatou."

Naruto stopped and stared at me. "But - but that's so sad," he said, stricken dumb.

I shrugged and nodded in the boy's direction.

"Inari," Tazuna scolded, "stop that and come give your Grandpa a hug." Inari ran over and hugged his grandfather.

"These people saved your grandfather's life," said Tsunami sternly. "Be nice to them."

"But it's not going to work," said Inari plaintively, turning to his mother. "This thing against Gatou can't work."

"You're wrong," said Naruto positively. "And we're going to prove it. We're going to be your heroes!" He beamed, standing, his chest swelling and his arms behind his back. He seemed quite decided.

"Heroes don't exist," said Inari morosely, and he turned and walked off into the depths of the house. "I'm gonna go watch the ocean..." he muttered, sighing.

"He has a serious case of the teenagers," I said, my eyebrows risen.

"He's lost someone to Gatou," Sasuke murmured. I looked over at him in surprise to find him staring after Inari, frowning.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"I recognize it from myself," he said simply. And then suddenly I was left with no words. Naruto had always been an orphan. But perhaps Sasuke hadn't.

"... I'm sorry," said Tazuna, breaking the awkward silence. "You're right. Inari's father..." Tsunami turned away, crossing her arms over herself as if trying to keep herself together, her angry eyes filled with unshed tears. "Maybe I shouldn't talk about it today," said Tazuna quietly, looking over sideways at his daughter. "But it's why I decided to build the bridge."

* * *

><p>We went out into the trees by Tazuna's house the next afternoon, where Kakashi-sensei explained to us our tree climbing training.<p>

"First: what is chakra?" he asked. I raised my hand and he pointed at me, from where he was leaning against his crutches.

"Chakra is a combination of physical and spiritual energy. It's molded inside the body, crafted through hand seals, and then expelled outside the body in the form of a spell. Chakra is increased through training and experience," I said.

"Correct," said Kakashi, "but what some don't know is that chakra control is increased through training as well. So far, all of you have been using chakra very inefficiently. You can do some basic techniques learned from the Academy, but you waste chakra doing so. If we don't break that habit, you could end up -"

"Like you?" Naruto grinned.

"Don't insult me when I'm trying to explain something to you," said Kakashi. "And also I have the feeling you're going to be really bad at this, so I wouldn't be grinning."

"Ha! Says you!" said Naruto. "I'll prove you wrong!" Off to the side, Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"This is what you do," said Kakashi. "You channel chakra into the bottoms of your feet, supposedly the hardest place to channel chakra. Like so." He made a hand seal briefly, before grabbing his crutches again. "Then you use the chakra to stick to a surface." He put his feet up on the tree and began walking sideways up the tree trunk.

Our eyes were wide with wonder, back then when things still had the power to stun us. I had half expected it, but even still... "That's incredible," I said.

"It is," agreed Kakashi. "And you three are going to give it a try." He threw a kunai down to each of us. "Get a running start and make it as far up the tree as you can. Mark your spot on your tree each time and then try to go higher than your best."

I raised my hand again. "What happens if we fall off the tree and land on our head?" I asked worriedly.

"If you're a good ninja, you'll learn not to land on your head," said Kakashi. "If you're not a good ninja, you will die!" He smiled cheerfully.

He wasn't as scary after Zabuza, though.

* * *

><p>And so we began. Sasuke and Naruto kept falling off, but I actually found going up and down the tree trunk to be surprisingly easy. Kakashi complimented me on having naturally good chakra control, perfect for things like genjutsu and healing - which I'd had some idea of before - and then he used my easy success to goad Sasuke and Naruto into doing better. Soon, they were competing against each other, trying their hardest to make it up the tree before the other. At least they seemed motivated.<p>

I quickly learned something else, though: to make up for my good chakra control, I had very little chakra. Going up and down the tree ten times left me tired, breathing hard. Sasuke and Naruto could make it halfway up the tree twenty times and not even seem to feel it. I was reminded bitterly of why Naruto hadn't taught me the Kage Bunshin - he didn't think I had enough chakra for it.

"Kakashi-sensei," I said, looking over at our teacher, who was sitting and watching the process.

He smiled almost knowingly. "Yes, Sakura?"

"Can practicing this a lot improve your chakra reserves?" I asked.

"It can," he said.

And so I started practicing running up and down the tree near Tazuna's house every night after dinner. I would also practice doing the three ninjutsu spells taught to us at the Academy: the replacement, the transformation, and the illusion copy. All required more chakra than genjutsu illusions did, so they were also good practice.

But I wasn't going to let Kakashi-sensei get away without fulfilling one of his training promises. So on that first afternoon, after I had mastered tree climbing, he took me back to the pond on the way to Tazuna's house and we overcame our bad memories of the place by helping me practice water walking in the shallows. Mostly, I just got my bare feet wet a lot at first. I didn't finish the training in the first day, so I came back the next evening before doing tree climbing practice and tried water walking again; the unsteady surface made it hard, but that time I got it.

One thing I did use genjutsu for was practicing one-handed seals. It took me a while to replicate what I had done by accident that afternoon with the Onikyoudai, but I quickly learned that starting a spell two handed and then keeping it up one handed was easier than starting it one handed. After that, I just had to figure out _why. _After some concentrating on it, I realized it was because the chakra was already shaped in the air beside the hand. So, with some chakra control finagling, I managed to move the chakra from my one hand to the air beside it in the correct precise movement, and then I could do one-handed silent spells.

Naruto and Sasuke trained every night after dinner, too, beside me. Neither of them had even made it up the tree yet, so we were doing different things, but sometimes we would stop and Sasuke and I would help Naruto with some of the stuff he'd missed at the Academy, as I'd promised myself. Originally, it was just going to be me helping Naruto, but then in his own macho, contemptuous way, Sasuke said it would be better if we "were all of a more equal level." Naruto got really pissed off if Sasuke started beating him, though, so I would fight with Naruto, and Sasuke would stand back and give Naruto pointers. He seemed to have ninjutsu spells down pretty well already, especially the Kage Bunshin. So we helped him better his basic taijutsu - he had lots of energy, strong stances, and painful punches, so that went pretty quickly - and we also helped him learn how to recognize and break out of my genjutsu, which he apparently didn't know how to do at all. This last part. Took. _Forever._

Sasuke and Naruto were surprisingly good at helping each other, but they'd just go back to competing against each other madly at the tree climbing training right afterward. They seemed motivated by my moving on to other things, almost angry about it, though I knew they were angry at themselves and not at me. I did give them some pointers - particularly about staying calm and emotionally in control while molding chakra, since they were such competitive, emotional _boys._

But I was so far ahead in my training that during the day, since Kakashi was still recovering and Naruto and Sasuke needed to train more, I was charged with accompanying Tazuna to his bridge and guarding him while he continued his work on it with the other construction workers. And I always went, no matter how exhausted I was from training the night before.

And out there near the sea in the hot sun, I read. A lot. Of _books._

* * *

><p>So one afternoon, I was sitting there near the construction site, up on the bridge, holding my book, and I was mentally pitying myself because I wasn't able to listen to music - that, apparently, would count as "sensory distraction" that would "impede my ninja capabilities." (Stupid Kakashi-sensei.) I was pretty bored. I'd done nothing but sit there and watch Tazuna and his workers labor for hours. I couldn't even do any of it myself; it would have "gone outside the bounds of my prescribed duty." So I was looking for anything to take my mind off of things, even as I was reading.<p>

Which was why I looked up and noticed it when one of the laborers approached Tazuna. I wouldn't have thought anything of it, except the laborer in question looked... nervous.

"Tazuna," he said reluctantly after a moment, "can I... talk to you?"

"Sure, Giichi, what's wrong?" said Tazuna, frowning, puzzled, straightening.

"I... I've been thinking about it, and... I don't want to build this bridge anymore. I'm turning in my notice."

"What - why the - why the hell not? Not you too!" Tazuna seemed taken aback, angry, almost betrayed. I got the feeling he and Giichi were friends. "Giichi, this bridge is important!"

Giichi looked away, almost shamefully. "... I _know_," he said. "And I want to help. But Gatou's men have been sending us threatening letters. I have my wife to think of. Tazuna... you know they're going to kill you, right? And all of this, everything, it will all just lose meaning if you die."

"Are you asking me to quit?" Tazuna asked in a dangerous tone.

"I... I'm asking you to think of your own life!" said Giichi, forceful at this last part, looking up at his friend pleadingly.

Tazuna's jaw set, his eyes flaring. "... I can't quit this project," he said. "You know that. The hopes of our people are riding on it. Commerce will suddenly be able to flow in and out of the Wave, even better than it used to. I can't just quit."

"But if we die..."

Tazuna paused. "It's lunch time," he said at last, quietly, solemnly. "Let's stop for now." He turned to leave.

"Tazuna -!" Giichi lifted a hand after his friend's back in panic.

"Relax, Giichi," Tazuna sighed, "you don't have to come anymore." He sounded disappointed. And he just kept walking.

But as Giichi closed his eyes shamefully, I wondered if that was really what he'd been shouting about at all. I got the sudden, sinking feeling I'd just watched the ruin of a decades-old friendship.

* * *

><p>And I would have forgotten about the incident, but the point was brought home to me again later that afternoon. The bridge builders had quit for the day and I was, as usual, accompanying Tazuna back to his home. But this time, instead of going around the village, we went right through the heart of it.<p>

"I have to buy the ingredients for tonight's dinner," sighed Tazuna. "I usually hate going through the center of town, but..."

And that had made me pause. Why would someone hate walking the streets of their own home?

I saw as soon as we entered the bustling heart of the city. Homeless people with signs saying, "Will Do Any Kind Of Work" lined the streets. Pickpockets were rampant, and I had to sling my bag across my shoulders to keep someone from being able to tug at it and run off with it. I held myself in close, not sure what it was about the place that made it feel so... dangerous. Maybe it was the way everyone looked starved, the way their eyes were like Giichi's - hollow, and unable to meet anyone else's for shame. Everyone went about their business with slumped shoulders.

"Is this all Gatou?" I asked after a while.

Tazuna looked sideways at me. "You're a sharp one, aren't you?"

I looked down, strangely embarrassed.

At the grocery store, there was barely any food, little on the shelves, little even in the produce sections. What there was, was picked over, thin, and bruised. The minute people saw us buying food, we started getting requests from poorer people - adults and children alike snatching at our bags, holding their hands out for money. We got people like that all the way home. I gave a little bit of money to each of them, until Tazuna told me that if I gave too much away I'd eventually come upon one of the homeless people who would harass us for money, following us home.

"It's despicable, what it's all come to," said Tazuna, angrily. "The adults have become cowards. We need that bridge to give them hope. Everything I see only makes me more determined to finish it."

And the bridge was important. But was it really enough? Somehow, I got the inexplicable feeling that I should be doing more. Maybe it was because Sasuke and Naruto were training all day, and I spent so many long hours sitting with Tazuna, hoping something would change. Watching other people work toward their goal.

What about _my _goal? What did _I _want to do?

I just felt so privileged, all of a sudden, to have grown up in the place that I had, and by the time we'd made it back to Tazuna's home that evening with the crickets singing all around us, my mind was full of it. Konoha was a paradise of wealth and peace in comparison to what I'd seen in the Wave. In comparison to what I'd heard of from the Mist, even. The Mist, an intimidating and violent military base, with its viciousness and poverty; the Wave, a poor fishing country, with its depression and shabbiness. Meanwhile, my own village was full of wide, paved, tree-lined avenues, covered in intricate and colorful buildings, with weather that was usually calm, and schools set conveniently next to homes, and ninja coming back and forth beside civilians and children in peace, and an old and wise leader. I was _blessed_, to have the Leaf, to have my family and my girlfriends.

The idea of the benefits of my own home pulled up something in the back of my mind. What could I do to help the Wave people? I remembered the produce section of the grocery store, the thin and picked over vegetables, the meager amounts of food available to feed so many.

"Tsunami-san," I said, standing up and coming over to where she was stirring a pot of food in the kitchen. She looked over at me suspiciously, stiff-backed. "Do people here know how to grow their own food?"

"We don't have many resources here," said Tsunami in response.

"But... you don't need much to start a vegetable garden... some seeds and good soil. Does no one here know how to grow something like that?" I asked.

"... We're fishing people," she said. "That's what we've always relied on."

My mind was spinning. _I _knew how to grow vegetables. A little old lady on one of our D ranks had showed us the basics of how to take care of a vegetable garden, and I had a retentive memory. I'd kept everything in my head.

"Do you think, if I gave a class showing the basics of how to plant a vegetable garden out here by your house... do you think people would come to it?" I asked then, nervous, hopeful.

Tsunami stared at me for a moment as if she'd never really seen me before. "I know several women who would be interested," she said at last. "We could do it in the early evenings, after you come back, before dinner."

And so by the time Naruto and Sasuke had come in from training and Kakashi had come down from his recovery room, we had already hammered out the details.

* * *

><p>Naruto and Sasuke's competitiveness had begun to border on ridiculousness. They had moved it from training, where it was useful, and into the dining room, where it wasn't. They almost made themselves hurl trying to out-eat each other, and after that I moved our places at the table so that I was sitting between them and they couldn't make eye contact with each other. Kakashi, of course, was completely unhelpful and seemed almost amused by my efforts. Sometimes, taking care of boys really was like taking care of small children.<p>

There was tea after dinner and as Tsunami did the dishes, the talk turned to the day behind us. "We saw a lot of... interesting things, while we were out walking in town today," I announced. "A lot of poverty." I was somber. My teammates looked over at me curiously.

"How was it?" Tsunami asked her father, who'd had a couple of drinks with dinner.

"The same as usual," he said in a slightly louder-than-normal tone. "Nobody'll look you in the eye. I tell you, things sure have changed since -"

He paused, and Tsunami had stiffened.

I was confused. "Since Gatou came along, you mean?"

Tazuna hesitated and then plowed ahead. "Since my son in law died," he said.

The reaction within the room was immediate. Inari, who had been very quiet except for the occasional teenager-ish comment, stood from the table and ran from the room. Tsunami threw down her dishes with a clank and hurried after him, uncharacteristically distraught. "Father, I told you not to talk about him in front of Inari!" she snapped backward defensively, tears in her eyes again, and then she shut the door behind herself.

There was a moment's pause. I looked at Tazuna. He seemed sad. "We never talk about him anymore," he said slowly. "It's like he died shamefully."

"Is that what the picture is about?" I asked. Everyone looked over at me in surprise. "In one of the photographs on the wall, there are four people posing: Tazuna, Inari, Tsunami, and a man. But the man's head has been torn out of the picture. Inari looks at that picture a lot. I always thought he was looking at his father. That's why I never said anything."

"Did one man's death really change everything that much?" Kakashi asked, sounding surprised, almost skeptical.

"Inari's father was the hero of this island," said Tazuna.

"Inari's father was called a hero?" Naruto asked. "Then why did he say he doesn't believe in them?" I was surprised Naruto had connected all the dots and remembered such a trivial detail, but then I remembered that Naruto, with his big ambitions and his love for stories, certainly wanted to be a hero, and at the very least believed in them himself.

"Probably because," said Tazuna bitterly, "Gatou took that away from him. But while he was alive, Kaiza _was _a hero. He and Inari weren't related. He married Tsunami and adopted Inari. But they all loved each other very much. Everyone loved Kaiza," added Tazuna, as if this were an irrefutable fact.

And with tears in his own eyes, he told us the story.

"_Kaiza met Inari first, about three years ago now. _

"_Inari was bullied a lot as a little boy. He didn't have any friends and he really wanted one, so we got him a dog from the local animal shelter. He named the dog Pochi. One day, Pochi and Inari were out near the ocean and some bullies came along. They took Pochi from Inari and threw him into the water, then they told Inari to go after the dog and get him. Pochi was thrashing around in the water, frightened, but Inari couldn't swim, so he didn't go in after him. He was too scared. _

"_The bullies pushed Inari into the water after Pochi, and Inari began to drown. Pochi finally learned how to dog paddle, but because Inari had abandoned Pochi, Pochi abandoned Inari. He swam away and left Inari there to drown. The bullies chased after Pochi, and Inari was left alone, drowning in the sea._

"_Kaiza came along and saw what had happened. He was a big, muscled, tanned man, a fisherman, a traveler from a foreign land, come here in a little boat just to start over. He jumped into the water and saved Inari from drowning; then he went after the bullies. He never did tell us what happened after that, but I get the feeling he scared the living shit out of them, because Inari was never bullied by anyone again._

"_Inari came to next to Kaiza on a remote beach on the south side of the island. Kaiza had gone fishing and started grilling the fish he caught over a fire. He fed Inari, made sure he was okay. Then he took him home, and that's how Tsunami met Kaiza. _

"_Kaiza taught Inari, and he taught the other people of our village. He was a brave man, and he taught us bravery. Kaiza always said a true man lived in a way that he would never have to regret anything he had done, and he said a true man protected whatever was important to him - even if he was only one man, even if he could only do so much, a true man lived without regret and protected anything he cared about. 'I will protect everything I care about,' he always said, 'with these two arms.'_

"_Inari's birth father had died before he could really remember him, so Kaiza became Inari's father. He taught him how to fish, how to do lots of little things. Kaiza became a member of our family. He and Tsunami fell in love._

"_Kaiza became an important member of the village, too. People called him our hero. Whenever danger came - a dam broke, or anything else of the sort - or whenever people weren't sure what to do - at town hall meetings and other things - Kaiza was the one people turned to. He was a natural leader, and he would always do whatever it took to sort things out. Once, he jumped out into the middle of a freezing storm and swam across to tie a dam back together so a sector wouldn't get flooded. Kaiza was a very vocal person, and when he spoke everyone listened. And when he spoke out against Gatou, everyone listened. Gatou saw Kaiza's effect on people, and he decided that had to be eliminated._

"_One night after fishing, Kaiza never came home. The next day, everyone was gathering in the town square. They watched in horror from behind erected chain-link fencing, powerless, as Kaiza, who had both his arms broken, was publicly executed by some of Gatou's thugs. They had a samurai behead him with a sword, did it properly and everything. Inari was there, crying. His father was smiling at him, with effort, until the very moment he died._

"_Inari has never believed in anything since. Especially not heroes._

"And that's - that's not fair... That man made everyone lose their faith - and that's why I have to -" And here Tazuna looked away, emotional. For all his flaws, I suddenly realized he was a very brave man. He was old, but he was one of the only people who was still trying to do something.

The story had caught at me. I used to be bullied as a little girl myself. All the other girls at my civilian school would make fun of me, calling me ugly, following me home and calling me names. Ino once saw what was going on, from where she lived down the street from me. She didn't know me then, but she ran over and defended me from the other girls. From then on, we were best friends, and that was how I had started down my eventual path to becoming a ninja.

I tried to imagine Ino being executed. She was just so strong, spunky, and sarcastic. It didn't fit. I couldn't imagine what Inari must be going through.

I wondered what Sasuke, who had lost his parents and who had seen murder, who aspired to it, would have to say. But he was dead silent, staring down at the table in front of him.

I almost missed, then, what Naruto had to say.

He alerted everyone to his presence, first-off, by attempting to stand and then falling over on his face. "... Naruto," I said at last, "are you okay?"

"You can't train anymore tonight," said Kakashi knowingly, and suddenly I realized all at once what was going on. "You're too exhausted."

"I have to -" Naruto grabbed the edge of the table and stood, trembling, weak, but determined. There was a terrible fire in his eyes. "I'm going to _prove_ to him that heroes exist. I'm going to _prove _it to him." The fire bordered on painful. Then Naruto turned away and began to walk with trembling steps toward the door.

I met Sasuke's eye and he nodded, standing, seeming almost dryly amused. "Hey, Naruto," I called out quietly, playfully, "aren't you going to invite us?"

Naruto looked around in surprise, as if suddenly reminded that he didn't have to do it all on his own anymore. And we walked up, each taking one of his arms, and we helped him out toward the training space in the trees.


	6. Chapter 6

6.

I started to get more and more tired as the week went on. I got up early in the mornings to go with Tazuna, taught my gardening class right after I came back to Tazuna's house, had dinner, and then spent late evenings out training with Naruto and Sasuke. It was exhausting work, but after a while one pushed past the point of exhaustion and into a kind of high where things seemed more manageable and nothing appeared to really bother one anymore. What usually happened was that Sasuke and I passed out while training trying to keep up with Naruto, who apparently had the stamina of a god. Then Naruto would pass out, and we'd all wake up the next morning on the forest floor feeling extremely sore. We'd get up, stumble our way back to the house, scarf down breakfast, and then take showers before going back out for the next day.

It was glamorous. Really, it was. I felt super clean, my hair was great, and my eyes totally weren't bloodshot all the time.

Yeah. Right.

* * *

><p>My first gardening class was nerve wracking. I had never really taught anything before. I went out at the appointed time with Tsunami, to a place in the woods with an orange sunset in the sky above us fading into twilight, and I felt a jump of nervousness in the pit of my stomach at the sight of all those older women, standing there underneath the shadows of the trees, waiting for me. Most of them were vast and well worn, with hard faces and stern manners.<p>

I got a sudden, vicious flashback to the last time I'd been put in a class of all women. It was during the female etiquette classes I took with Ino, back when we were little girls. Our parents had signed us up and, having become friends after she'd saved me from those bullies, we always sat together, though at that time it was thought we would go down separate paths: she as a kunoichi ninja and me as a civilian wife. The lessons were held during the summer and they taught girls the basics of flower arrangement, cooking, sewing and embroidery, tea ceremony, comportment, calligraphy... those sorts of things. (We did not learn how to sweep graves and offer incense to the dead. That came later, at the Ninja Academy. Death, we had been taught, was a natural part of ninja life.) I'd always been horrible at female lessons. I was not nearly girly or elegant enough. I don't think my teacher liked me.

So, all in all, not such a great association.

I stood there before those tall women and clapped my hands, attempting a smile. "Alright!" I said, in a voice that seemed to me very high and shrill. "Let's get started!"

A woman near the front raised an eyebrow skeptically. "A little girl's teaching us this?" she asked. There was some muttering.

The nervousness increased. "I promise," I said, "I know what I'm talking about. Someone in my home village taught the basics of vegetable gardening to me."

"I thought you were a ninja," someone else said in confusion.

"I am," I said. "Ninja do lower level missions sometimes, taking care of tasks for other people for a small fee."

"So you learned all of this during one mission? For all we know, you could be teaching it all wrong!" The muttering increased.

"I promise, I have a very good memory!" I said, almost desperately, trying to talk over people.

"Prove it," someone called out, and then there was an almost eager silence.

My mind drew a blank for a moment... and then my mouth started moving for me. I just did what came naturally: I started reciting the Ninja Rules. There were fifty. There had been a whole test on them in Iruka-sensei's class. I recited all of them, by heart, without hesitation. Most of them were obvious: put the mission first, kill your emotions, see the hidden meaning, always prepare, listen to your commander, never show any weakness. They sounded really intimidating at first, but if you recited them enough the message behind them began to dull, until you were thrown out into the field and had to actually start using any of it.

My memorization skills weren't exactly something I was proud of or thought was very useful in the context of being a ninja. But nevertheless, the women were impressed. After I finished, there was an almost frightened pause. So I made an effort to smile. "But that's just one of the parts of my life," I said. "I also use my memory to do things like read books and solve puzzles. I hate spicy food and I have a really fat orange cat." The tension broke, and there were even a couple of chuckles.

But after that, there were no more protests. The women listened to me as I showed them how to draw plots and plant seeds for things like carrots and potatoes.

At the end of the lesson, though, someone asked me, almost eagerly: "Show us something you do can do as a ninja. Something physical. Something cool."

I paused and thought about it, dusting the soil off my hands and standing. Then, suddenly, I darted away into the trees. There was a gasp at my speed. I moved fast enough through the leaves, up a tree and away, that they were left standing there staring stupidly at the spot where I had disappeared - and where I was no longer there. Silent, carefully, silent, I snuck around... and around... balancing carefully on a tree branch above them...

By now, there was talking. "Where'd she go?"

"She disappeared!"

"Maybe she just left. Didn't think we were all that interesting." Nervous laughter.

And then I shot chakra into the bottoms of my feet, swung down so I was hanging from the bottom of the tree branch, and covered the mouth of the woman who had asked for a demonstration with my hand - all in one movement.

The woman gasped and jumped, looking upward, and there were a couple of screams. A pause. Then laughter, applause.

I smiled in relief, feeling good about myself. (I'd probably been right not to take out the kunai knife, though.)

And after that, the women in that class became my friends.

* * *

><p>I was shaken awake one morning, lying on the forest floor. I blinked, my eyes hazy against the morning sunlight filtering through the trees. My hair had come undone and it felt grimy in the back where the earth had been touching it. I raised my head.<p>

Kneeling there beside us was a woman in a traditional pink kimono. She was very pretty, with long dark hair and doe-like brown eyes. "Be careful, sleeping out here. You could catch a cold, or someone might come along and fetch you away." She smiled.

I sat up as she went to go wake up Sasuke and Naruto. Naruto woke easily, as dazed and confused as I was. But as soon as someone touched Sasuke, his eyes flew open and his hand went for a kunai. The woman flinched backward with surprising swiftness. Sasuke paused, tensed, for a split second. Then he relaxed, seeing nothing dangerous in his environment, and frowned.

"Who are you?" he asked rudely.

"Sasuke's a little grumpy in the mornings," I said apologetically. Then, trying to swallow down the weird taste in my mouth and think past the fuzziness in my head, I asked Sasuke, "How did you train yourself to do that? React in your sleep as soon as you're touched."

"I rigged a feather on a string up to a tactile alarm so that every time the feather brushed against me, a painful shot of electricity would go through my arm and it would flinch instinctively for my kunai." He still sounded irritated and casual as he got to his feet.

I filed that information away in the back of my mind for future reference. For a ninja, awakening upon touch would be useful.

"Wow," said the woman, still smiling, falsely I thought. "Such dedication to your craft. Are you ninja?"

"Yeah, we're great ninja!" said Naruto, too loudly and enthusiastically for this early in the morning.

"Naruto," I muttered, "quieter."

"Sorry."

"We were out here training for a battle," I informed the woman. "What are _you _doing out here?" I looked her over. I didn't recognize her from town.

"I was picking medicinal herbs," said the woman, indicating a basket on her arm.

I immediately perked up. "That's very interesting," I said. "I don't recognize you from the village."

"Oh, I live a ways back in the forest here."

"We could help you pick the herbs," Naruto offered.

"Yes, we could," I said eagerly, on a thought. "I teach a class on vegetable gardening, so people here don't have to use money to buy food. Do you think you could show me something about picking medicinal herbs? That way, people could find the right herbs to make stews and salves without having to pay for medicine."

Hinata often made herbal salves - she was very like that; she loved baking, too - but I had never really gotten all that into it before. We did flower pressing together instead, and I often went shopping with Ino. Now, in the context of a mission, herbal medicine suddenly seemed interesting.

The woman eyed me thoughtfully. "That's very considerate of you," she said. "That doesn't sound like something a ninja would do."

I looked down, shrugging in embarrassment. "My parents were civilians."

"There is no shame in that," said the woman, and for some reason her smile widened. "Yes, I will help you."

And so, though Sasuke seemed skeptical, he followed me and Naruto around the clearing with the woman. She showed us the correct herbs to pick, talking about what each one did and how to recognize them. I listened closely, filing it all away, and even my teammates seemed interested.

As we picked, the woman asked us questions. "So you were training out here?"

"That's right."

"Why?"

We blinked, pausing. Looked around at one another. It seemed like such a stupid question with an obvious answer.

"To get stronger," said Sasuke, raising an eyebrow.

"And what motivates you to become stronger?"

"I want to become Hokage, the leader of my village!" said Naruto eagerly, first.

"And why do you want to become Hokage?" the woman asked. She seemed rather nosy. Her interest appeared genuine. It was as if she were searching for something.

"... To prove people wrong about me," said Naruto, and I realized I had never heard him say _why _he wanted to be the Hokage before.

The woman looked around at us. "And what about you two?"

"... I am motivated by anger," said Sasuke next, reservedly. "And by ambition. I have a goal to kill someone and I can't afford to remain weak."

The woman's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. At last, she turned to me. "And you?" she said. "What motivates you?"

I cast around in my mind. Ridiculously, perhaps, no one had ever openly questioned my motivation to become a ninja before. "I want to be an important person," I said at last. "I want to be an important person who protects other people."

This seemed to be what the woman was looking for. She smiled. "That is very wise," she said. "I believe a person can only truly become strong when they are protecting something or someone they care about."

Naruto seemed thoughtful. "Protecting, huh?" he asked at last.

"Yes," said the woman, looking at the boys. "Surely you two also have people you want to protect. Like your teammate does."

The boys looked stumped, so I offered, "I want to protect my village, my family, and my friends Ino and Hinata. And also other people, people who can't help themselves. And now I want to protect my team as well." Here, I smiled at them.

"Yeah," said Naruto in realization, brightening as if liking the idea. "Yeah, I want to protect you guys too! And I want to protect Iruka-sensei... and the little ninja kids I tutor... And I want to prove that heroes exist to Inari. I have... I have people." His eyes widened in realization then, almost frightened. "I've never had anything like that before," he said in hushed tones. (So even his friendship with Iruka was recent?)

Sasuke looked from one teammate to the other. "You are right," he said after a moment. "I do not want either of you to die." And with this declaration, in his own way, he seemed satisfied. Maybe that was the closest Sasuke could get to admitting he cared about another. He wasn't good with emotions, on top of everything else.

The woman stood and smiled. "The three of you will become strong," she said serenely, and turned gracefully to leave.

"You have to go?" I asked in surprise.

"Yes. Unfortunately, I must be getting back." She gathered up her basket of herbs and left us kneeling there in the grass.

"It was nice meeting you, miss!" Naruto called to her retreating back.

The woman looked back over her shoulder in amusement. "I'm a man," she said. Then he continued on his way.

Naruto and I gaped.

"But... but his voice is so _high... _and he looks so girly..." I muttered in disbelief, staring after him.

"The world is full of mysteries," Naruto agreed in amused bafflement.

But Sasuke was frowning. "Actually, his voice sounds familiar... Hey, are you sure we haven't met some time before?!" he called after the man, but the man appeared not to hear him. He continued a few more paces, and then paused.

"I wouldn't know about us meeting before," he said, in an indefinable tone, "but I am almost certain we will meet again. It's just a feeling. You know?"

The man left. It was a strange meeting.

* * *

><p>Either way, the man was right. Sasuke and Naruto finally made it to the tops of their respective trees that evening before dinner. They came in, dragging each other in, grinning amicably - even Sasuke for once - pleasantly exhausted. There would be no more late evening training tonight. Kakashi was also well enough to move around without crutches again. My three teammates would therefore be joining me at the bridge with Tazuna tomorrow, our training and recovery complete. The atmosphere that night at dinner, all of us collected around Tazuna and Tsunami's table, was very warm. Even Inari was not as brooding and teenagerish as usual, instead seeming rather quiet ever since his blowup about Kaiza. It felt like a wonderful evening. At the same time, there was a silent warning inherent within it: Zabuza and his strange assistant were coming.<p>

We sat back after dinner and there was a lazy sort of daze swirling around the room. "The bridge is almost finished," said Tazuna. Then, curiously, "I always meant to ask you... why did you stick around after I lied to you?" Maybe he felt it would be safer to ask now, when it appeared we really would be staying for the whole affair.

"You mean, why are we still here?" Kakashi asked in mild surprise.

"Because to abandon you would have been a shitty thing to do," I responded heatedly. (And then, after a pause, I remembered and pinched myself underneath the table. I was noticing less and less when I swore. I blamed the influence of battles and masculine teammates.)

Kakashi nodded. "To put it more elegantly, in the words of the previous Hokage: 'Not to do right when you know it is right is the coward's way. This is especially important to remember for a commander.'"

"The Fourth Hokage said that?" I asked.

"He was my Sensei," Kakashi revealed.

"That's so cool!" Naruto said immediately, and even Sasuke sat up straight in interest. Kakashi chuckled.

And it _was _cool. All of a sudden, I had one of those brief moments when I realized just how important a man Hatake Kakashi probably was.

The Hokage went in chronological order: there was the First, then the Second. They both died in the line of duty. The Third took power, and that was the Professor. He appointed a successor, the Fourth, and retired. The Fourth was a brilliant young prodigy who had distinguished himself on the battlefield of the Third Ninja War. They called him the Golden Flash because he had somehow created a ninjutsu spell that achieved teleportation: he could disappear in a flash of blond hair and reappear, already armed, behind enemy lines. Konoha's side won the war; the Fourth Hokage had been one of the reasons why, and it was because of this that he was chosen as successor.

The Fourth Hokage was not in office for very long. An ancient fox demon, an evil being made entirely out of malignant chakra, appeared out of its dormant forest rest and attacked the village - in fact, it attacked in the same year I'd been born; I was several months old at the time, hiding with my parents in one of the underground shelters created for civilians in times of war. The Fourth defeated the demon, saving his village, but both he and his kunoichi wife died in the process. The Third had to come back out of retirement and take over the village again, and he'd been in the post ever since.

That Kakashi had not only met such a man, but been taught by him, inspired in me a kind of fascination.

"He always said that the Academy taught the logistics of team management, but not the things that really mattered," Kakashi was saying.

"What was he like?" I asked.

Kakashi sat back thoughtfully. "He was very easygoing," he said, surprising me. "But when it came to his job, he was full of what might be called 'idealistic passion.' Plenty of people could have called him naive, but somehow no one ever did; he had a way of swaying people to his side. And he was brilliant, of course. Often, he had more important things to do than care for us. We learned to be pretty independent. He made up for it when he was around by being a great teacher, calm and matter of fact."

"And he's _dead." _Kakashi looked around warningly, instinctively, growing cold. But he paused in surprise when he processed who had spoken. Little Inari was crying, sitting there at the table, but it was an angry kind of crying. _"Why?!" _he shouted, standing suddenly. _"I've been watching you train all week! You all train really hard and say all these nice words and you're all just going to end up __**dead**__!_

"_You!" _He looked at Naruto in particular, wildly, losing it. "You're just like _him!" _

So Naruto reminded Inari of Kaiza. (He had to mean Kaiza. The idea of Inari saying Naruto was like the Fourth Hokage was absurd.)

"You storm in here and pretend you know everything, but you know _nothing! _You know _nothing _about pain or suffering, all you do is laugh and smile all the time!"

The words hung sharply in the air for a moment, as Inari gasped for air, as though he had suddenly run out of them.

Naruto sat up straight for the first time that night. He was tight lipped, and his blue eyes were blazing. I'll never forget the look of absolute contempt he gave Inari. "Thank God I'm laughing," he said. "At least I'm not as useless as you. You just keep crying. See where it gets you. Maybe they'll pick you up off the streets, give you your own soap opera or something. But as for me, I'm different. I'm still brave. I have _hope_." He leaned forward viciously.

"Naruto," I murmured painfully, "he's just a little boy."

Naruto ignored me, standing and storming out of the room. Naruto was normally so sunny, it put an effective damper on the mood of the entire house. What was it about what Inari had said that had set him off so much?

I looked over, lost, at Kakashi. He watched Naruto leave with a very certain expression on his face. Then he saw me. He turned to Inari and said softly, matter of factly, "Just because you have gone through pain, you shouldn't assume no one else has. I think Naruto doesn't like you because he himself tired of crying long ago."

Inari's eyes widened in surprise, and for once he seemed to be out of words.

But he wasn't the only one who Kakashi's words had surprised.

* * *

><p>I realized, in that time after dinner, that I really knew nothing about Naruto.<p>

I knew he was an orphan; he had grown up and raised himself. I knew he wanted to be Hokage to prove people wrong about him. I knew he'd been a troublemaker at school. I knew he loved big stories and movies and he believed in heroes and in the idea that he could become one. I had a vague idea of a strange connection to Konoha's upper echelon, and he'd said once that he loved eating, especially cooked ramen, and that he tutored some little kids in the ninja arts.

But all things considered, with all the time we'd been together as a team, that was pathetically little; most of it was just basic facts sorts of stuff. Unimportant, common knowledge, things anyone in our old class could have found out about. I knew more about Sasuke than I knew about Naruto, and Sasuke hardly ever told me anything: I knew that his parents had died when he was a kid, that it had left him depressed and angry, that he'd watched someone be murdered, and that there was someone he wanted to kill.

Sasuke closeted himself in his room after dinner and spoke to no one. I couldn't tell if it was just that the high level of emotion in the house made him uncomfortable, or if it was that, like with the way Naruto brought up bad memories for Inari, Inari brought up bad memories for Sasuke. So I couldn't turn to Sasuke with any of this.

After a while, I left my room and padded out into the hallway. I could hear Tsunami and Tazuna cleaning up in the kitchen. Kakashi moved past me down the darkened hallway and toward Inari's room.

"I'll take the kid," he said, jerking his head in that direction. "But I think someone needs to talk to Naruto, and I think that someone should be you." He looked at me meaningfully.

I felt a thrill of nervousness, but at the same time it was what I had wanted to do myself. I nodded.

* * *

><p>I found Naruto out in the training clearing, way high up in a tree. He was sitting on a branch, watching the moon. I gazed at the slope of his shoulders for a moment. He seemed very small and alone.<p>

"Naruto," I called out softly, "what are you doing out here?"

He looked around in surprise. "... I like high places," he said.

I mentally counted that up as one more thing I knew about Naruto. "Can I join you up there?" I asked. There was a pause, but then Naruto nodded. I put chakra in my feet and walked up the tree trunk, balancing on the branch and then sitting beside him. The branch bent a little under our combined weight.

Naruto gazed out ahead of him miserably. His fists kept clenching and unclenching sporadically. It was rather alarming to see. "Naruto, Kakashi-sensei told Inari that you had been through pain too, but you just got tired of crying," I said. Naruto tensed up, still not looking at me. "But he didn't explain what he meant," I added, and the tension relaxed minutely. "Naruto, I just realized... I don't know anything about you. If you want to talk about what Kakashi meant, as a friend I'd be willing to listen."

The offer came out almost hesitantly.

Naruto paused for a moment, and then he looked at me with a terribly forced smile. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm fine."

I didn't believe him. "I never asked whether you were fine," I said quietly. "I asked whether or not you want to talk about it."

The smile dropped. Naruto looked at me piercingly for a moment, so much so I almost blushed.

"There are certain things I can't tell you," he admitted after a while. "But there's a secret about me, a secret that some of the adults who have been in Konoha a long time know about. Have you ever noticed that some of the adults don't like me?"

I thought of my mother's suspicion, of Iruka's anger. "They call you a troublemaker," I said.

"Yeah, but they always called me that," said Naruto. "Even before I'd done anything. I was..." He swallowed. "I was pretty lonely for a while. No one would allow their kids to be friends with me. No one wanted me as a part of their family."

He looked down, his voice hoarse. "Sorry," he said. "I just feel like I'm complaining."

"No, go ahead!" I continued quickly.

Naruto nodded, and there was a pause. He still looked down. "Well, on the night after my Academy graduation test, one of the adults finally decided to betray the village by tricking me. He tried to kill me." My eyes widened. "And he told me the secret, the horrible secret to why all the adults don't like me. Iruka realized what was going on and saved me from that man, getting injured in the process. Then Iruka was about to be killed by the man, and _I_ saved _him_. So we saved each other. That was the night I learned the Kage Bunshin, actually.

"Iruka apologized afterward, and said he'd just yelled at me and shut me out all those years because he couldn't handle... what he knew about me. And that's how we became friends. And after that... after I didn't get angry and leave the village... I guess the Hokage began to trust me a little more too, because he let me be friends with and tutor his grandson and his friends. And then I got placed on Team Seven, and you guys have helped me, and I'm finally starting to feel like a competent ninja. I feel like I actually could make it to Hokage under someone like Kakashi.

"But for a long time... for a long time..."

"You just wanted someone to notice you," I finished softly in realization. Holy shit. Hinata had been right.

Naruto looked up, and his eyes were full of surprise and raw emotion. "Yeah," he said. "You get it... I always thought you were like me," he revealed, then, quietly. "That you just wanted to be acknowledged..."

And before I could reveal that my words were actually Hinata's, he leaned forward and, with surprising softness, he kissed me.

* * *

><p>The first thing I did, of course, was freak the fuck out, because I'm full of class.<p>

I stood up straight on the branch and gasped and then nearly fell off. Naruto leaned forward in alarm and grabbed me by the leg to keep me from falling off the tree, and then he was grabbing my leg, and holy shit did that _mean something, _and -

"Sakura?" Naruto asked slowly, worriedly. "Are you okay?"

"Naruto, I..." _I like Sasuke. Don't I? _Half of my mind told me I shouldn't have enjoyed Naruto's kiss. The other half told me that I had. Then both halves of my mind reminded me that Sasuke and Naruto _belonged to Hinata and Ino anyway_. "I... I... I don't even know whether or not I like you like that... I..." And then, because Naruto looked hurt and self conscious, I added, "But that doesn't necessarily mean I don't like you like that! I just... UGH!" I screamed, very coherently, at the skies.

"You're not making any sense," said Naruto, a frown beginning to take over his face.

"I just." I turned away, realizing I needed to breathe, somewhere quiet, somewhere calm. "I need some time to figure some stuff out, okay?" I started to leave.

"But, wait, Sakura!" Naruto's call was almost desperate, and I instinctively turned toward it. "I don't want to make things weird between us," he said, and he looked horribly sad. "Can't we just... go back to the way things were? I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I..." He looked down, his voice small, like a contrite little kid. "I'm _sorry."_

I went back over what he'd just told me and I realized why he might be so upset. "Don't worry, Naruto." I smiled with effort. "We're still going to be friends, whatever happens."

His head shot up in relief. "Really?" His eyes were big again. "Then... you're not afraid of my secret?"

I thought hard for a moment. "... Is it something you have any control over?" I asked after a while, because I realized I might have just stumbled across a high class piece of information.

He laughed bitterly. "Oh, no," he said. "It's not."

"Then it doesn't matter to me," I decided firmly. He just looked at me like he'd never seen anything like me before.

My work here done, I started to get down from the tree.

"Sakura-chan," he called after me quietly, and there was that chan again.

Disconcerted, harried, I looked up. "Yes?"

His eyes were gentle. "Thanks."

* * *

><p>As I lay there in bed that night, staring up at the ceiling, my mind was spinning: with Naruto's kiss and our little brushes of electricity, with Sasuke's piercing looks and the way he helped me to my feet and the hand he put on my shoulder after our fight with the Onikyoudai, with Kakashi and his impenetrable humor.<p>

Kakashi's ghosts, Sasuke's murder, Naruto's secret. At some point or another, I'd asked for information (perhaps too much information) on all of them, and I'd gotten my answers. Just how complicated were the pasts of the three men who had been placed on my team?

And after a night of intense brooding on pasts, there was the future: our first day as a full team guarding Tazuna at his bridge site.


End file.
